James Ritty

The inventor of the cash register

It was James Ritty, -an obscure Dayton cafe owner, in collaboration with his brother John, who invented a machine that for the first time offered protection for the retail merchant. By putting indicators, that is, tablets registering the amount of a sale, in the machine he made it possible for the customer to check or audit the amount of his purchase. Such was the chief function of the pioneer cash register, destined to revolutionize the financial aspect of retail merchandising the world over.

When Ritty invented the cash register in 1878 he fitted into what might be termed the pattern of the inventor. As various historians of invention have pointed out, many of the men who have contributed notably to mechanical progress came not from within, but from without, industry. Cartwright, who invented the power loom, was poet and clergyman. Whitney, the cotton gin inventor, was a teacher who never had the slightest connection with cotton production. Howe and Singer, pioneers of the sewing machine, probably did not see the inside of a clothing factory until long after their patents were in use. Westinghouse was not a railway employee yet he devised the air brake. Fulton of steamboat fame and Morse, father of telegraph, were artists. Bell was a teacher of the deaf long before he transformed communication with the telephone. Thus it came about that James Ritty took his humble place in this gallery of giants of invention. He was a cafe owner whose primary purpose in creating the first cash register was to protect the cash receipts in his business.

James Ritty was one of five brothers. Their father, Leger Ritty, emigrated from Alsace Lorraine and settled in Dayton, Ohio. Leger Ritty was a dispenser of drugs made of herbs. He established an office. in the southwestern section of Dayton and built up a considerable practice. During a cholera epidemic "Dr." Ritty, as he was known, compounded remedies that helped to combat the disease.

Three of the Ritty brothers Sebastin, John and James were of an inventive turn of mind. Sebastin took out a number of patents on farm implements. John, ultimately to be associated with James in the invention of the cash register, was a mechanic by trade and carried on the inventive tradition of the family. Among other things, he patented several machines for the hulling of green corn and set up a canning factory in which they were used. He also operated a restaurant and. cafe. There is a story, still current in Dayton, that his ingenuity was revealed in a unique device. He piped water to all the tables in his restaurant and used the water power to operate motors which rotated palm leaf fans for the comfort of his patrons in hot weather.

Hence James Ritty, who was the youngest of the brothers, grew up in an atmosphere that encouraged invention; His association with invention, however, was purely accidental. Although trained as a mechanic he forsook work with his hands and opened a cafe variously known as "No.10" and "The Empire" in a three-story building at 10 South Main Street in Dayton.

10 South Main Street

This location was destined to be historic in the annals of business. Here, in a small room on the second floor, the cash register was born.

The Dial Register

The first model had two rows of keys across the lower front of the machine. Pressed down, each key represented the individual amount of money to be recorded. The sales were registered on a face resembling the face of a wall clock or a steam gauge. There was no cash drawer in this earliest effort. Although incomplete in many details, the machine was the first outpost in the long line of protection that the cash register was to give to the retail merchant in the years to come.

The Paper Roll Register

The next machine came to be known as the paper roll machine. James Ritty mounted a wide paper roll horizontally above and across the keys inside the machine. Each key carried a sharp pin. When the key was depressed, its pin pricked a hole in the roll of paper just above the key. At the same time the paper roll would be advanced, or fed, one step. The result was that at the end of the days business the proprietor could remove the roll of paper, unroll the portion representing the day's sales, and count the holes in each column. If there were ten holes in the five cent column, he simply multiplied ten by five which told him that he had done a fifty cent business in five cent sales.

James Ritty launched the cash register business under the name of "James Ritty's New Cash Register and Indicator," in a little room over his cafe at 10 South Main Street. Apparently he did some advertising because registers were shipped to different parts of the country. The most distant order was from Duluth, Minnesota.

By October 1881 the infant cash register industry was beginning to emerge from its swaddling clothes. James Ritty needed more room so he moved to larger quarters. Here John Ritty was foreman. The factory force numbered ten men. Since the first machines that appeared on the market were largely constructed of wood, most of the employees were carpenters and cabinet makers, a trade which James Ritty had followed in previous years.

James Ritty encountered hard sledding in his efforts to build up the cash register business. He still conducted the cafe which demanded the major part of his time. In later years he confessed that he "simply could not direct the cash register business." Commenting on his failure he once said:
"If any one other than John H. Patterson had gotten the business, the cash register industry would never have been a success." Events prior to 1885 bore out this statement.