USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 68
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The present organization is as follows: President and Treasurer, Geo. B. Smith ; Vice-President, Wm. H. Stewart ; Secretary, A. W. Lowrey.
This being the original factory making folding boxes and paper pails for carrying cereals and all bulk goods, the company has long enjoyed a large patronage throughout the United States and Canada, and is still recognized as the largest producer in these lines.
For oysters and ice cream alone the output numbers many millions annually and many of the familiar cartons containing cereals, soaps, soap powders, con- fectionery, dried fruits, etc., are made in enormous quantities by this company.
THE DAYTON FRICTION TOY WORKS.
These works were established in 1909 by David P. Clark, who had previously built up to large proportions similar works. They deserve mention because the inventive genius and the enterprise back of them have made them leaders in the manufacture of their specialties. The goods are sold in the United States and in Europe. The number of employees is sixty-nine.
THE JOYCE-CRIDLAND COMPANY.
This company was established in 1874 by Jacob O. Joyce and T. H. Cridland, under the name of Joyce and Cridland, for the manufacture of lifting jacks, starting with one type and six sizes, and commencing operations in a small space on the third floor of W. P. Callahan's machine shop on East Third street.
The business prospered and in 1876 the company moved to a room in the John Rouzer and Company's building, on the canal, at the head of Fourth street, where some additional types of jacks were developed.
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In 1879 F. I. Joyce, the son of J. O. Joyce, was admitted to partnership, and the firm name was changed to Joyce, Cridland and Company. In 1881 the com- pany moved to the building on the corner of Wyandotte and Shawnee streets, formerly occupied as a planing mill by Daniel Slentz. At this place a large variety of different types and sizes of lifting jacks was developed and special machinery installed for their accurate manufacture.
In November, 1893, the business was incorporated under the name of The Joyce-Cridland Company.
In 1903, after twenty-two years on Wyandotte street, the company bought a piece of land on Lindeb avenue, south of Huffman avenue, and in March, 1904, broke ground for the building of the present plant, which was completed and occupied in April, 1905.
The present plant is a creditable monument to the spirit of growth which has from the beginning characterized The Joyce-Cridland Company. The products of this company find a market in almost every quarter of the globe.
The officers of the company are : President and Treasurer, F. J. Joyce ; Vice- President and Superintendent, Thomas H. Cridland; Secretary, George W. Lie- wellyn.
THE MORRIS WOODHULL COMPANY.
In 1878 L. and M. Woodhull entered into a partnership for the manufacture of buggies which lasted continually for twenty-one years. In 1890 Morris Woodhull purchased the entire interest of his brother Lambert, the firm was dis- solved, and he became sole proprietor of the business. In 1878 Mr. Woodhull was one of the first to introduce into Ohio the manufacture of carriages in a wholesale way, outside of Columbus and Cincinnati, and the first to start in that line in Dayton and vicinity. The original shops were located on Kenton street and were a part of the old Beaver and Butt buildings. The business was begun in a small way, the intention being to make a trial of three hundred car- riages for the first year.
The demand for the firm's work was, however, so great during the first year that seven hundred, instead of three hundred, vehicles were completed to meet the orders. The shops remained on Kenton street for two years and were then moved to the Dayton and Western shops on West Fifth street, where they were continued until 1888, when the present large shops were completed at the junc- tion of Fifth street and Home avenue.
Mr. Woodhull introduced many improvements in connection with the manu- facture of buggies. The plant is one of the most complete for the manufacturing of buggies and carriages in Ohio.
In 1907 the Morris Woodhull Company was incorporated by Morris Wood- hull, Morris G. Woodhull, James R. Woodhull, Roger S. Woodhull and Charles D. Bidleman.
THE EGRY REGISTER COMPANY.
In May, 1893, when the company started, it occupied a lonely little room of dimensions fifteen by thirty. Scarcely a year later it was enabled to remove to much more commodious quarters in Findlay street, which consisted of at least
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forty thousand feet of floor space. The development of the company was rapid from that time on, and in November, 1904, the firm removed to its present quar- ters on East Monument avenue, where one hundred and seventy-five thousand square feet of floor space are utilized in the making of recording machines. Two hundred people are employed regularly in the new plant, including an office force of twenty-five people. One of the marvels of the plant is the large printing establishment. which sends out more than five thousand pamphlets, catalogues and other printed descriptions of the product.
The average daily output of the factory is sixty registers. The line includes more than forty different styles and sizes of sale-recording devices, designed to accommodate every department of every business.
The company has the honor of having Leopold Rauh, president of the Cham- ber of Commerce, as its president. Milton C. Stern is secretary.
HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY.
There were only seven families living in Dayton in 1803. The next year Col. Robert Patterson moved from Kentucky and bought the homestead place adjoining Dayton, and two thousand four hundred and seventeen acres of land extending from the Soldiers' Home to the Shakertown road, near the insane asylum. He had founded Lexington, Ky., and was one of the three original owners and founders of Cincinnati. There was a time when what he did and suffered in driving savagery out of the Ohio valley was known in every cabin in the west. He died on the homestead place in 1827, where his son, Jefferson, became the father of a family well known in Dayton and elsewhere. The sons, John H. (born 1844) and Frank J. (born 1849; died 1901) went through the Dayton district and high schools. Later they both went to Dartmouth college and John H. was grad- uated from that college in 1867. John H. married Miss Katherine Beck, of Brook- line, Mass., and Frank J., Miss Julia Shaw, of Dayton, and there are "sons of theirs succeeding."
After their varied but successful experience as coal miners and dealers, these two men created the National Cash Register Company and have given it a world- wide renown.
The cash register mechanism is among Montgomery county's most important contributions to the inventions, utilities and industries of the world.
The United States now exports each month large invoices of costly and im- proved registers to every civilized country. Very few, if any, such mechanisms have ever been imported into the United States.
Cash registers are now in extensive use in retail stores, for the purpose of preserving a record of the sales made. Their primary object is to afford a con- venient means of making a record, and to insure the accuracy of it, so that the proprietor may know at the end of each day the exact amount of the day's sales, and that each has been accurately and honestly registered. The essentials of such a mechanism have been stated to be: (1) a series of operating keys representing different amounts of money ; (2) a registering mechanism upon which the values of the operated keys are added and preserved; (3) an indicating mechanism by which, when any key is operated, an indicating tablet representing the value of
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THE NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY AS IT APPEARS TODAY
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such key is exposed to view; (4) an alarm which is sounded by the operation of each key, to call attention to the exposed indication; and usually, (5) a money drawer which is automatically unlocked and thrown open at the operation of any one of the keys. The indicating mechanism gives utility to the machine by com- pelling the clerk to operate the proper key when he registers each sale. It is the protective element of the machine. Cash registers of the most improved type are not only widely used in stores, but, it is claimed, are "needed and can be sold wherever cash is handled."
The cash register industry has been wholly created within the last twenty-five years. Certain inventions, contributing some essentials of a successful register, had been known before at home and abroad; but in 1882, these were only models on paper, and no cash register had been devised which was in commercial use in this country or any other. Prior to this date, however, at Dayton, Ohio, the National Manufacturing Company-a name since changed to National Cash Reg- ister Company-was making these machines under The Ritty & Birch patents. They covered an improved device for holding and releasing the indicators.
None of the prior patented devices had either gone into use, or were fitted for practical use ; so that in a commercial sense Ritty and Birch were not only pioneers as to the extent of their improvement, but the actual creators of the first practical cash register as a whole. The Ritty and Birch invention "brought success to what prior inventions had essayed, and in some part accomplished."
The advantage thus obtained was followed by great business enterprise and the liberal encouragement of further invention ; the National Company now owns one thousand five hundred and seventy letters patents of the United States and for- eign countries, embracing over twenty-eight thousand five hundred separate and distinct claims, and in its six inventions departments at its factory employs thirty inventors and draughtsmen, who are followed by eighty skilled mechanics, de- voting their whole time to experimenting toward improving cash registers and inventing others to meet new demands. These things have enabled the National Company practically to possess the field in the cash register industry. It claims to have, thus far, manufactured and sold ninety-five per cent of such machines in use anywhere in the world.
Among the more important improvements which the inventors have worked out into practical advantage on a cash register may be named :
I. The totalizing counter, which adds all the registrations into one total.
2. The tape-printer, which prints the amount of each registration.
3. The check-printer, which prints, cuts off and throws out a check giving the figures of each registration, with the initials of the clerk making the sale.
4. The throw-out counter, which makes it possible to print the amounts of all transactions on the detail tape, also on the check which is issued to the pur- chaser, but prevents any amount, other than the cash transactions. from being added into the totalizing counter.
5. A variation of the foregoing, which adapted it to print, instead of a check, an itemized bill, such as is used in the larger stores and offices.
6. The multiple-counter, which provides a separate adding mechanism for each person who operates the machine.
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7. The multiple-drawer feature, or a series of cash-drawers attached to one machine, giving the equivalent of many machines in one. This feature may be at- tached to the different types of registers, and gives the advantage of a separate machine for each individual, so that separate records are made not only of the transactions of each, but mistakes of any one of the different number of clerks using it are readily identified.
8. Distant indication, which is a means for electrically indicating at a dis- tance, namely, in the proprietor's office, home, or front show window, the sales made as registered on the machine.
Among more recent improvements are: (1) the application to the machines of electricity as a motive power, giving great rapidity of operation and saving of manual work; and (2) the application of cash registering mechanisms to con- form to the special requirements of systems of express companies, telegraph companies, banking offices, wholesale houses, telephone stations, department stores, railroad offices, postoffices and other government departments.
A cash register has this peculiarity about it, not common to other manufac- tured things: the user often does not want it to work rightly; hence, to have value at all, it requires very high workmanship and perfection of parts; and any device not so built, has not, thus far, been commercially a success. A good cash register must be one that cannot be beaten. To "beat" a register is to apparently operate it with proper indication, but without proper record in registration. It must be built so as not only to operate accurately, but so that it cannot be pre- vented from working properly.
Whatever has been accomplished in this line has been done within twenty-five years. In all the history of business there was no cash register in commercial use before 1882; now there are over seven hundred and eighty-eight thousand Nat- ionals in user's hands, in every civilized city in the world. Before 1882 James Ritty, a Dayton business man, and John Birch, a Dayton mechanic, invented a connecting mechanism under patents which the supreme court of the United States afterwards sustained; and this was the bridge to success from failure of all previous attempts at cash register construction. In February, 1882, they, with their Dayton friends, Mr. J. J. Eckart, Mr. William Kiefaber, Mr. Gus W. San- der, and Mr. Ben Early, who all then had intelligent faith but little money, or- ganized the National Manufacturing Company, to promote the machine. They had made little progress when John H. and Frank J. Patterson bought them out and changed the name to the "National Cash Register Company," organized in 1884.
A short time prior to that, the Messrs. Patterson were losing money in a little store that they were operating in Coalton, Ohio, in connection with their mines there. They heard of the newly invented cash register and ordered two of them by telegraph. Their use in the store resulted in their making money and ever since that time Pres. John H. Patterson has had this idea-"What was good for the little store in Coalton is good for every store in the world."
He quoted that in sending a telegram of congratulations from London to the One Hundred Point Club assembled in convention in its latest session.
The Patterson Brothers greatly improved the register mechanism, extended its markets and organized the personnel of the company's employes with unflagging
LOOKING THROUGH THE VISTA NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY
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zeal, and an ability and persistence which can be only known and recorded by its results.
When Frank J. Patterson died, his friends remembered "his few words and well-considered judgment, his liberal treatment of all subordinates, and unostenta- tious acceptance of conspicuous business success in the closing years of his life."
He was unconsciously very democratic. In the earlier ten years, he gave up nearly the whole of the salesmanship to his brother, and lived among the factory workers. It was his custom every day to go through the factory, carefully watch- ing what each bunch of men were doing, and giving them the friendly word of en- couragement that they long remembered.
The main plant in Dayton, Ohio, includes one hundred and forty acres of ground on which are thirteen buildings with thirty-five acres of floor space, used solely to manufacture National cash registers.
The buildings are of steel and re-enforced concrete and are constructed along the most modern factory principals, affording the best light, ventilation and sanita- tion possible. In fact, they are generally conceded to be the best all-round type of factory buildings to be found anywhere. They are protected throughout by the automatic sprinkler system, and by a volunteer fire department made up of factory and office employes.
The executive offices of the company are at Twenty-eighth street and Broad- way, New York city.
In the various factories and offices are employed regularly something over five thousand people, about one-tenth of whom are women.
In addition to this there are two thousand five hundred men in the various sales offices of the company in all parts of the world.
In 1909 there was paid out at the Dayton factory for wages three million one hundred and sixty-nine thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight dollars, or about ten thousand five hundred and sixty-six dollars per day. This did not include money paid contractors, nor by them to workmen on building contracts.
The company makes five hundred and sixty-seven styles and sizes of National registers ranging in prices from five dollars to seven hundred and ninety dollars. They are made for every civilized country in the world and are designed to take care of two hundred and twelve branches of trade, from the smallest to the largest business. The average output is eight thousand five hundred machines per month, about one-third of which are exported to foreign countries. These exported cash registers are adapted to the currencies of England, Germany, Aus- tria-Hungary, France and Belgium, Norway and Sweden, Holland, Spain, Cuba, Mexico and all Spanish-speaking countries, Brazil and Portugal, India and Rus- sia, including dollars, shillings, marks, kronen, korona, francs, kronor, guldens, pesetas, pesos, milreis, rupees and rubles. National registers are sold for use also in Japan and China, and certain styles may be adapted to the currencies of any country in the world.
The company has manufactured and put into use, up to January 1, 1910, seven hundred and eighty-eight thousand six hundred and forty National cash registers. They are sold direct to users for cash less five per cent., or on monthly payments. To aid in caring for the enormous detail of such a business the home
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company has organized and operates selling corporations in several foreign coun- tries and has sales agencies in practically all foreign countries.
The National Cash Register Company has three hundred and twelve stores for the sale of its product alone; and on September 30, 1909, had in its stores and agents' hands twenty three thousand five hundred and sixty-seven cash registers, being its manufactured product held and ready for sale.
In the month of October, 1909, there were sold thirteen thousand six hundred and forty-eight National registers, the sales in the United States and Canada alone amounting to one million two hundred and sixty-nine thousand four hun- dred and fifty dollars for that month.
Some other facts of minor interest are: one hundred and fourteen tons of coal burned per day ; four thousand, nine hundred horsepower generated ; ninety miles of wire and cable, and thirty-eight miles of leather belting used in trans- mitting this power ; twenty-eight elevators in use; the plumbing system contains two hundred and twenty-five miles of pipe-line; two hundred and twenty-eight series of shower baths have been installed in the buildings for the use of the em- ployees.
In the raw stock storage department are five thousand kinds and sizes of materials; two million two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of steel, brass and gray iron castings. The company receives, in all, seven thousand different kinds and sizes of material.
It was not until he found out what he had to do, nor until after he had strug- gled for ten years with old and inefficient ways of working, that Mr. John H. Patterson got fairly started with "new methods" in the company's business. At the factory now there is a salesmen's training school. Before a man goes out to sell cash registers he must pass through this school. which includes a five weeks' course in salesmanship and the mechanism of the registers. Similar schools are conducted also in London, Berlin, Cape Town, Wellington (New Zealand), Sydney (New South Wales), and Mexico.
The Hundred Point Club is an exclusive organization of National Cash Reg- ister salesmen in the United States and Canada. It simply means that each agent who sells throughout the year an average of one hundred points per month (by points we mean twenty-five dollars) is entitled to membership in the One Hun- dred Point Club. The first man to sell this number of points is president of the club ; second, vice-president ; third, secretary; and fourth, treasurer. All becom- ing members are given a week's entertainment at the factory at the company's expense, including their transportation coming and going, no matter how far they are away. In addition they are each given a prize of one hundred and fifty dollars in gold.
We often hear it said that the selling organization of the National Cash Reg- ister Company is the best in the world. If that be true, the members of the One Hundred Point Club may correctly be termed the best salesmen in the world.
The traveling mechanical inspectors constitute a very important auxiliary organization to the selling force. These are men specially educated and trained to travel about the country calling on the users of the National Cash Registers, to see that the machines are working satisfactorily and are kept in the highest effi- ciency.
THE TOOL MAKING DEPARTMENT 1 NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY
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All tools used in constructing the parts for the registers are made in the tool-room at the factory, employing two hundred and forty skilled workmen.
President Patterson often says that he is interested in this business not only to make money, but also to do good, his desire being to remove from the thous- ands of clerks at work in retail stores, or mercantile establishments of any kind, the temptation of the open cash drawer and other loose methods of handling money, and to give the purchaser of a National Cash Register the most value for the least money possible. The standing guarantee of the company is: "To fur- nish a better cash register for less money than any other concern."
The company is widely known because of the unusual things it does. At the present time some of these things are :
Recess periods, both in forenoon and afternoon, for the women employes.
Rest rooms for the women employes, to which they may retire at any time in case of illness.
An emergency hospital in constant charge of a nurse where cases of illness or accidents receive immediate attention.
The daily visits of a physician to the plant.
Bath rooms in all buildings for the free use of employes. including towels and soap furnished by the company. Each employe is entitled to one bath per week on the company's time-twenty minutes. He may have as many baths as he wants on his own time.
Library of two thousand three hundred volumes, including many papers and magazines, for the benefit of all employes.
The maintaining of neighborhood clubs and educational classes.
Relief association paying sick, accident and death benefits.
As a protection to those already employed, each new employe is required to pass a physical examination.
The women come to work later than the men and leave earlier, and thus avoid the crowded street cars.
The company furnishes aprons and sleevelets for its women employes, launders them and keeps them in repair.
High back chairs and foot-rests are provided for women employes, where the work permits it.
Bicycle storage-sheds are erected for the accommodation of employes who ride wheels. Also, a compressed-air apparatus for inflating the tires.
Elevator service is arranged in advance of time for going to work, making it unnecessary for employes to climb a number of flights of stairs to reach their re- spective departments.
A number of gardens are conducted each summer where the boys of the neighborhood are employed raising vegetables, which they may use in their own homes or sell, under the direction of a competent gardener in the employ of the company.
There is maintained a large, well equipped dining room and kitchen for the officials and heads and assistant heads of departments.
The plant is open at all times to visitors, and in addition to a trip through the plant, an entertainment is given each forenoon and afternoon consisting of a stereopticon lecture, including motion pictures and music. Forty thousand people
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come annually from nearly every country in the world; and there has been a no- table increase in the number of intelligent and critical men and women who, from greatly differing experiences and points of view, wanted to learn and study how this factory grew and what it does.
They have included many guests of prominence, such as: The Moseley com- mission ; a commission of French labor leaders; during the Louisiana-Purchase exposition, His Eminence Cardinal Satolli, the Pope's personal representative to the exposition, and the commissioners general from twenty-nine foreign countries ; faculty and trustees of Chicago University ; President Wm. Mckinley; William T. Stead; Judge Benjamin B. Lindsey; Prince Hohenlohe; Joseph Jefferson; Jacob A. Riis; Doctor Nansen; Colonel Cody, and many others.
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