Burroughs receives calculating machine patents

August 21, 1888: William Seward Burroughs (ca 1855-1898), the son of a machinist in upstate New York, spent some years working as a clerk before moving to St. Louis and taking up invention. From 1884, he attracted investors to aid in his development of a printing adding machine.

By 1890, he had patented a machine and sent it out on trial.

By the mid-1890s, the American Arithmometer Company of St. Louis was actively selling the Burroughs Registering Accountant, as they called the machine. As early as 1898 it established a factory in Britain to produce for the European market.