Jay R. Monroe (1883–1937) was the great synthesiser of the mechanical age. A businessman with a background in accounting, he realised that the early 20th-century office was fractured by a frustrating trade-off: one could have the lightning-fast addition of the American Comptometer (or Burroughs Adding Machine), or the versatile multiplication of the European pin-wheel machines, but never both in one seat.
He found a third way through an alliance with inventor Frank Baldwin. Using Baldwin’s split-stepped drum mechanism and a base, Monroe created a machine and a business to rival the titans.