Dorr Felt Biographical Sketch:
Dorr Eugene Felt was born in Rock County, WI on March 18, 1862. At 14 he began a machine shop in Beloit, WI. He moved to Chicago in 1882 and obtained work as a mechanic. A perceptive and skilled worker an entrepreneurial spirit, in his free time Felt devised and constructed a computation device out of such crude materials as a macaroni box, rubber bands, and metal skewers.
Felt called the machine a Comptometer. A mechanical calculator, the Comptometer was the first mechanical calculator to greatly improve upon the first mechanical computing device created, the arithmometer, which was first commercially distributed in 1851.
Felt opened Felt and Tarrant Manufacturing Company with Chicago businessman Robert Tarrant in 1889; a large manufacturing facility in Chicago, out of which he built and sold Comptometers. The Comptometer computing device became a great commercial success and was sold and used world-wide. Felt went on to invent more devices and acquired 46 domestic patents and 25 foreign patents.
As a result of Felt's experience as president of a large industrial company, he was asked by the U.S. Dept. of Labor to participate in a study of labor relations in Europe. Joining a team of other individuals from the U.S., Felt toured England and France in order to examine manufacturing facilities and to speak with owners, managers, and laborers about the successes and frustrations of labor conditions in the two countries. The results of the commission's inquiries were reported and published, but more importantly this trip marked the beginning of Felt's close involvement with national and international trade and labor interests. Felt attended and spoke at labor conferences and wrote about labor conditions, unions, communism, Bolshevism, and other labor related subjects.
In addition to writing and speaking on broad topics, Felt held posts as president and director of the Illinois Manufacturers Association, president of the Illinois Society Sons of the American Revolution, and director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1920. Felt was a regional advisor on the War Industries Board in 1918, a board member of the Chicago Association of Commerce, and a member of Chicago's Union League Club.
This is a picture out of a book in the Loyola University Archives about the Felt family genealogy that I found fascinating. Underneath is a close up.
I am working on the part of the collection which consists of the Air Board of Chicago and information regarding flying: all sorts of designs and technology within the aeronautics fields, the many pilots, the investing companies, and so much more...
Until I began working with this collection I did not understand how rapidly the technologies, discoveries, and world competitions for the best programs developed. In the 1920's people were excited over Air Mail and the ability to communicate with others faster - today we communicate with the world in seconds and are in jeopardy of losing the Postal Service altogether - it is amazing what can happen in less than a century!
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