This device, outlawed in 1907, was also used on a New Century typewriter. The full handbook for this New Century model can be seen here.
Frederick Proctor Gorin
Born November 7, 1864, in Louisiana, Pike, Missouri
Died September 27, 1933, in Seattle, Washington
The following is from Charles Vonley Oden's Evolution of the Typewriter (1917).
Oden worked for Underwood.
Oden worked for Underwood.
TABULATORS
The typewriter, for typewriting in its simplest form, having been
thoroughly established, inventors were making every effort possible to improve
the machine and develop its practicability. For example: The earlier typewriters
were not practical for doing statement or form work; it was necessary to strike
the space bar for each intervening space between various positions of writing on
the same line, then lift the carriage and compare scales. This was very
necessary, and work of this character could not be done with any degree of
facility and accuracy.
Many attempts of various kinds and classes were made to produce a
tabulating device that would be practical, but among the many only two are
entitled to recognition, all others embodying practically the same principle.
These are the Gathright and Gorin, the latter being an infringement on the
former.
GATHRIGHT— On January 15, 1889, Joseph B. Gathright*, of Louisville,
Kentucky, filed application and secured patent (No. 436916), September 23, 1890,
for a tabulating device. The use of this invention permitted the carriage to
move forward from one position to any other desired position, skipping the
regular spacing controlled by the rack, and indicated by the scale on the
machine. This device made it possible to do billing and other statement or form
work easily and accurately by mechanically skipping spaces desired to be left
blank. This was accomplished by touching a key that released the dogs
from the rack and permitted the carriage to pass to a fixed position, where
its course was arrested by a stop. The number of columns was limited only by the
number of engaging stops.
For reasons unknown, this patent was not used by any of the typewriters
manufactured at that time. Its value, however, was immediately appreciated by
those responsible for the development of the Underwood, who secured control of
the Gathright patents and embodied them in the construction of the earliest
Underwood machines. This invention increased the value of the typewriter
inestimably as it was the initial step to the many uses in which the typewriter
has been employed in the various forms of billing, bookkeeping, statement work,
etc.
*This man was not Joseph B., as Oden claimed, but Josiah Baker Gathright (1838-1919):
GORIN — On January 3, 1895, F. P. Gorin, of Chicago, Illinois, filed
application for a patent on a tabulating device, which was awarded him May 5,
1896 (No 559449). This patent was assigned to the Remington Typewriter Company
and the device sold as an attachment to their machine at a price of twenty
dollars each above the list price of the machine.
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The Underwood typewriter, which was first produced in practical form about
the year 1896, entered suit for infringement upon the Gathright patents, and
after several years of litigation, established through the courts their claim of
priority as sole owners of this device. It will therefore be understood that all
mechanical spacing devices that permit the carriage to move forward any number
of spaces in excess of the single regular scale space, used by all machines,
whether they be called tabulators, column selectors, self-starters, or any other
name, embody the principle contained in the Gathright patents, which belonged
to, and was a part of, the first Underwood.
Los Angeles Herald, January 27, 1907
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