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Exhibition:
The Museum of Business History and Technology features over 2,000 artifacts representative of the evolution of business technology. Although its strength lies in machines produced by American manufacturers between 1873 and 1940, there are examples of inventions dating back to James Watt's 1795 copier, and Thomas Decolmar's 1820 calculator, as well as many others.
Beginning with the invention by Christopher Latham Sholes of the first practical typewriter in 1873, the museum displays examples of over
500 typewriters; 400 mathematical devices; and various other technologies introduced by innovative inventors of the period.
In addition, the collection includes a library of archival material pertaining to the history of the business equipment industry.
Collection:
- A complete run of Remington business machines; from typewriter Model No. 1, dated 1873, to the last Remington produced in 1981. The most complete Remington collection in existence.
- Examples of engineering genius, innovation, and creative problem solving, from Dorr E. Felt's invention of the Comptometer to Carlson's invention of Xerography, and many others.
- The collection parallels and demonstrates the nation's striking, post-Civil War increase in efficiency and productivity as office technology began to evolve.
- The collection demonstrates emerging specialization in the work place, as well as the need for a management hierarchy and new forms of corporate structure, as business increasingly developed the capacity for growth and complexity.
- The collection supports the stories of workers adapting to changing work tasks, roles, and functions in the workplace.
- The collection embodies the story of the changing role of women in the workplace brought about by the invention of the typewriter.
- The collections offers insight into the 19th century foundations of communications and office technology that we tend to take for granted today.
- The collection demonstrates technologies converging, as computers now accomplish functions that once required several different machines.
- The collection offers a rich range of examples of the growth of advertising as a marketing tool in American commerce; as well as changes in how business machines were advertised; and what advertising messages say about American culture, in particular the role of business and women in American society.
- The collection demonstrates the system of trademarks and patents conferred on American citizens by the Constitution of the United States.
- The collection is a physical manifestation of business history that, with its breadth and depth, indicates the broad social impact of business technology on almost every aspect of life.
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