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Brandt Manufacturing Co

 

Frederick William Brandt

 

 

Brandt, F. Wm., b. 1906, d. 1938

 

 

 

1921, Watertown High School Orbit

 

Quite a number of years ago the founder of the present Brandt Manufacturing Company was employed in a local bank where it was necessary for him to pay out various items usual in banking transactions, over the counter. In addition to this he was required to make up the payroll for a railroad employing a very large number of men.

 

These latter payments, together with the regular transactions of each day, made the total of small coin payments so great that it was a considerable mental strain. Moreover, the likelihood of error was always present. The thought suggested itself that a mechanical means of dispensing silver and pennies would be a tremendous saving of time and labor.

 

Mr. Brandt had from time to time constructed mechanical devices as a pastime after banking hours. Among these was a miniature old-fashioned flour mill with an overshot water-wheel. Disposed about the mill were various moving figures such as customers, a fisherman, and also sitting in the shadow of the mill, a young couple.  The mill with its mechanical figures was placed above a large aquarium. The whole was propelled by a weight. The water was drawn from the aquarium and as it ran over the wheel turning it, it was apparently driving the mill.

 

In the working out of this and similar interesting but non-essential devices, the thought became more pronounced that the counting and paying of money, mechanically, would be an excellent subject to work upon.  The idea once conceived it was merely a matter of a few days to crystallize a general principle for carrying it into effect. It took one year, however, to work out in detail and produce the first machine to be used commercially.

 

So thoroughly and accurately was this first model constructed that it is still in use in one of our local banks. This pioneer machine has now passed its twentieth birthday.

 

The object of the machine was to make a given payment of change or gold by the depression of a single key, thus eliminating the work of selecting the coins necessary to make the payment. For instance, when the key 87 is depressed the machine delivers the least number of coins necessary to make the payment and in this case these coins would be in a half dollar, a quarter, a dime, and two pennies.

 

Computation is unnecessary and as the machine selects the coins and delivers them it can readily be seen how important the machine is to the business world. In the case of the changer machine the difference between the amount tendered and the amount of the purchase is automatically returned without computation. For instance, if a dollar is tendered and the sale is 13c the machine returns the correct change by simply depressing the   13th key, computation being unnecessary.

 

As the Brandt Automatic Cashier was the pioneer in its field it took years to establish it as one of the standard equipments in use in the business world. The sale of the machines has, however, gained momentum in recent years and there are between four and five millions of dollars worth of the same now in use.

 

The plant here is equipped with a large number of special appliances to make the different parts of the machines and one hundred employees, under competent foremen, are necessary to keep this machinery in operation and to assemble the parts made. The office force employed in the factory office and in the main office on Main Street, number thirty.

 

The principal departments for administering business, together with the names of those administering them are as follows:

 

E. J. Brandt   ................  Experimental Department

E. W. Quirk   .................  Foreign Department

C. R. Acker ...................  Sales Department

A. W. Guetzlaff  ..............  Service Department

R. D. Easton  .................  Engineering Department

O. E. Hoffman   ...............  Auditing Department

E. J. Cavenaugh  ..............  Shipping Department

G. E. Bullock  ................  Production Department

W. G. Halfpap    ..............  Factory Superintendent

R. J. McAdams. ................  Purchasing Department

 

The general offices for conducting the business have been variously located in New York, Washington, Chicago and Watertown. It has been necessary in the more recent history of the business to occupy an office building here located on Main Street and from this point the business is conducted through various offices in New York, Washington, Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Minneapolis, and other points. These offices are controlled by District Managers who report to the home office here. There are fifty men employed in the sales force.

 

The officers of the company are:

 

Edward J. Brandt     President and General Manager

C. R. Acker          Vice-President and Sales Manager

E. W. Quirk          Secretary and Foreign Manager

 

 

1983      Karma, a division of Brandt, Inc., sold to three employees of Karma   05 06

 

 

Cross reference:

Edward Opperud, obit

Brandt-Quirk home