Disneyland for Workers

The National Cash Register Company begins life in 1879 as a rather typical manufacturing company, but soon starts focusing efforts on its flagship product, the cash register. At the time, it's almost unknown.

The company's aggressive promotion includes a nationwide sales team, and America's first sales training manual. Pitching the machine as a business enhancer, the 'product' is the elimination of theft by salesclerks.

This first attempt at sales promotion is so successful that the company is able to build a new, state-of-the-art facility. Photographers are invited, and go home with lots of (somewhat staged) publicity photos. Nice touch.
National Cash Register, 1910

  Nice Place to Work
The National Cash Register Company expands very rapidly, buying out 80 early competitors to corner the market. With 6,000 employees, it sells a million machines in the first 15 years. Its new manufacturing facility contains innovations designed to create a healthy, happy working environment, with huge windows, allowing lots of fresh air to circulate. It's a worker's dream.

Machine operators, 1910

  Many Steps to Make a Product
Making a successful product involves a surprising number of separate operations. The first task is usually cutting out and shaping all the individual parts required. A cash register is somewhat similar to a typewriter, requiring many individual keys and linkages. Some perform the mathematical addition of prices for each item, while others display the result in pop-up numbers at the top of the register. Some parts, like the ornate housing, might require additional operations, such as polishing or plating.


NCR employee amenities, 1910

  Refined Life
When the workday is over, employees return to living quarters just a stroll away that would arouse jealousy anywhere else in America. Not since the first days of the textile mills, almost a century earlier, have workers been offered such comfortable digs.