A common sound in any store is the sound of the cash register ringing, signifying that another sale has been made. These records have been around for about 100 years, but not many people know exactly where and by whom they were invented. The invention of the cash register was one of the small steps that helped build industrial giants around the world. You can’t go to a single store now that doesn’t have at least one register, some of the big stores may have up to 25 registers to serve customers.
The invention of the cash register took place in the 19th century in the United States after the American Civil War. A man named James Ritty opened a salon in Dayton, Ohio. One day he noticed a little contraption that counted the turns of the wheel on a steamboat and thought he would be fascinated to create a machine that would add up the money totals for his business. The reasoning behind the concept of a record was to keep track of the sale to make sure the employees weren’t scamming the employer out of money.
James Ritty went home to Dayton, Ohio and was joined by his brother John Ritty, who was a skilled mechanic. They tried a few different prototypes and finally on the third try they got the machine they wanted where you could push a button and it represented a certain amount of money. Basically, the first cash register was just an adding machine. In 1879 they patented the machine as “Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier”.
So the Rittys decided to open a factory to begin production of their new “cashiers.” It wasn’t long after that that James Ritty couldn’t run two businesses at the same time, so he sold the factory to a group of investors. These investors become shareholders and in 1889 the majority shareholder, John Patterson, changed the name of the company to the National Cash Register Company and the name has stuck ever since.
James Ritty may not be as well known as Thomas Edison or Eli Whitney, but his invention of the cash register has had the same impact on societies around the world. The cash register is a necessity for life and this world would probably be a lot more disorganized were it not for the invention of the cash register.