Which company was founded in 1884 as the National Cash Register Company?

NCR Corporation was founded in 1884 as the National Cash Register Company.

John Henry Patterson and his brother Frank bought the National Manufacturing Company and its cash-register patents in 1884, then renamed the business the National Cash Register Company. The company was based in Dayton, Ohio, and built its early success by manufacturing and aggressively selling mechanical cash registers.

NCR became known for innovative sales practices as well as products. Patterson established a sales training school in 1893, while the company promoted systematic sales territories, demonstrations and business education. Among its notable employees was Thomas J. Watson Sr., who later joined IBM and carried the “THINK” slogan into that company.

The stored answer uses the company’s later, familiar name: National Cash Register Company became NCR Corporation in 1974. NCR later expanded into computing and was acquired by AT&T in 1991 before becoming independent again in 1997. In 2023, the business was divided into NCR Voyix and NCR Atleos, but NCR Corporation remains the canonical historical answer to this question.