Remington Rand

Remington Rand (1927–1955) was an early American business machines manufacturer, best known originally as a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation as the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Remington Rand was a diversified conglomerate making other office equipment, electric shavers, etc. The Remington Rand Building at 315 Park Avenue South in New York City is a 20-floor skyscraper completed in 1911.[1]

History

Rock Ledge estate in Rowayton, Connecticut, company headquarters from 1943 to 1964. Retired General Leslie Groves, who had headed the Manhattan Project, served as chief of research and development during part of this time.
M1911A1 U.S. Army semi-automatic pistol manufactured by Remington Rand.

Remington Rand was formed in 1927 by the merger of the Remington Typewriter Company and Rand Kardex Corporation. One of its earliest factories, the former Herschell–Spillman Motor Company Complex, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.[2][3] Within the first year Remington Rand acquired the Dalton Adding Machine Company, the Powers Accounting Machine Company, the Baker-Vawter Company and the Kalamazoo Loose-Leaf Binder Company.[4]

From 1942 to 1945, Remington Rand was one manufacturer of the M1911A1 .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol used by the United States Armed Forces during World War II. Remington Rand produced more M1911A1 pistols than any other wartime manufacturer.[5] Remington Rand ranked 66th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.[6]

In 1950, Remington Rand acquired the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, founded by the makers of the ENIAC, and in 1952, they acquired Engineering Research Associates (ERA), both of which were pioneers in electronic computing. At that time, Remington Rand had become one of the biggest computer companies in the United States.[7]

Remington Rand was acquired by Sperry Corporation in 1955 to form a company then known as Sperry Rand (later shortened to Sperry). However the brand name of "Remington Rand" remained as a subdivision for many years.[8] Sperry merged in 1986 with Burroughs to form Unisys.[7]

Products

Typewriters

A Remington "Quiet-Riter" made for the British domestic market in the late 1950s

Initially produced by E. Remington and Sons, the Remington Typewriters were the first to use the QWERTY keyboard layout. Remington had bought the design from Christopher Sholes. The Remington No.1 was the first model released. All keys were uppercase. Remington spun off Remington Typewriter Company in 1886, and after the 1927 merger, the Remington Rand Corp. continued to manufacture and sell typewriters.[9]

The UNIVAC

The UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I) was the second commercial computer made in the United States.[10] It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC. Design work was begun by their company, Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, and was completed after the company had been acquired by Remington Rand. (In the years before successor models of the UNIVAC I appeared, the machine was simply known as "the UNIVAC".)[9]

The first UNIVAC was delivered to the United States Census Bureau on March 31, 1951, and was dedicated on June 14 that year.[11] The fifth machine (built for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission) was used by CBS to predict the result of the 1952 U.S. presidential election. With a sample of 1% of the voting population it predicted Eisenhower's win.[9]

In 1949, Remington Rand designed the Remington Rand 409, a control panel programmed punched card calculator (but not introduced as a product until 1952 as the UNIVAC 60 then in 1953 as the UNIVAC 120 with double the memory).[9]

Other products

Remington Rand also made electric razors. The Remington brand of razor was originally produced by a division of Remington Rand, starting in 1937. Sperry Corporation sold the division in 1979 to Victor Kiam, who became the company spokesman of the new Remington Products Company. His line, "I liked the shaver so much, I bought the company" became one of the more memorable advertising slogans of the early 1980s. Remington Products was sold in 2003 to the battery manufacturer Rayovac. Rayovac is now Spectrum Brands.

They also sold punched card systems, beginning with the 1928 acquisition of the Powers Accounting Machine Company and ending in the 1950s.

The Remington Rand Co. and the Remington Rand Building are depicted as the Knox Co. and the Knox Building in Richard Yates' 1961 novel Revolutionary Road.

In 1921 Rand Kardex sponsored the Tonawanda Kardex all-star team of football players from Tonawanda, New York; known to have formed in 1916 and coached for its entire existence by Tam Rose. The team joined the NFL that season but folded after playing in just one game as a league member.[12]

The novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand said that she chose her Americanized name based on her Remington Rand typewriter.

The 1980s television series Remington Steele had Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) draw the personal name for her detective agency's fictitious male chief-executive official (whose identity Pierce Brosnan's character assumed in the first installment after discovering her elaborate ruse) from her old Remington typewriter. (The family name for the fictitious boss came from the Pittsburgh Steelers professional football team.)

In the 1996 film The Ghost and the Darkness, screenwriter William Goldman used the name for Michael Douglas' fictional character, Charles Remington.

See also

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ "Remington Rand Building, New York City - SkyscraperPage.com". Skyscraperpage.com. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
  2. ↑ "Cultural Resource Information System (CRIS)" (Searchable database). New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2015-11-01. Note: This includes Kerry Traynor and Daniel McEneny (January 2013). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Herschell–Spillman Motor Company Complex" (PDF). Retrieved 2015-11-01. and Accompanying photographs
  3. ↑ "National Register of Historic Places Listings". Weekly List of Actions Taken on Properties: 6/17/13 through 6/21/13. National Park Service. 2013-06-28.
  4. ↑ A History of Sperry Rand Corporation. Sperry Rand. 1967. p. 32.
  5. ↑ Archived February 12, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  6. ↑ Peck, Merton J. & Scherer, Frederic M. The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (1962) Harvard Business School p.619
  7. 1 2 Norberg, Arthur L. (2005-06-01). Computers and Commerce: A Study of Technology and Management at Eckert–Mauchly Computer Company, Engineering Research Associates, and Remington Rand, 1946-1957. The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-14090-4.
  8. ↑ Saunders, Cece. "REMINGTON RAND FACILITY" (PDF). Midtown Planning. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Norberg, Arthur Lawrence (2005). Computers and Commerce: A Study of Technology and Management at Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, Engineering Research Associates, and Remington Rand, 1946-1957. United States: MIT Press. ISBN 026214090X.
  10. ↑ The first commercial computer in the world was the BINAC built by the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation and delivered to Northrop Aircraft Company in 1949.
  11. ↑ "CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News". Cnn.com. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
  12. ↑ "Professional Football Researchers Association- Pro Football History". Footballresearch.com. Archived from the original on 19 March 2006. Retrieved 17 December 2014.


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