Sperry Rand Corporation. Remington Rand Division.

Remington Rand Inc., was incorporated in Delaware on January 25, 1927, as a merger of the Remington Typewriter Company and the Rand Kardex Bureau, Inc. It merged with the Sperry Corporation to form the Sperry Rand Corporation on June 30, 1955. Remington Rand operations were continued as the Remington Rand Division.

E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, N.Y., began as a manufacturer of sewing machines in 1873. In 1876 the company purchased the rights to manufacuture and sell typewriters from C. Latham Sholes, who had invented the machine three years before. The company exhibited them for the first time at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. Sales were slow at first, but during the 1880s the company began an aggressive world-wide marketing campaign, opening offices in England, Germany, France and Russia.

In 1927 Remington merged with the Rand Kardex Bureau, Inc., which had developed the Kardex, the Rand ledger, and a number of other office record control systems. Under the leadership of James H. Rand, Jr., Remington Rand became the largest American producer of business machines and office equipment. However, within a few years it began to face aggressive competition from Thomas Watson's International Business Machines. By the mid-1930s Remington Rand was losing market share to its younger rival. In 1938 it sought new markets by manufacturing electric shavers and later diversifying into other domestic electrical appliances.

The post-World War II move into the computer industry was a natural strategy for a company committed to office automation and represented an attempt by Remington to reverse its long decline. In the early 1950s the company quickly established a lead in the area by purchasing two of the nation's pioneering electronic data processing companies. In 1950 it bought the Philadelhia-based Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. On March 31, 1951, Remington Rand delivered UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer system, to the Census Bureau. In 1952 Remington absorbed Engineering Research Associates of St. Paul, Minn. The two firms were consolidated as the Univac Division.

Remington Rand merged with the Sperry Corporation in 1955, becoming the Sperry Rand Corporation. However, it continued to lose market share to IBM and by the early 1960s was in a distant second place with only 10 per cent of the market. In 1986 Sperry Rand was purchased by the Burroughs Corporation in a hostile takeover. The merged company was renamed Unisys Corporation.

Remington Rand's industrial relations records include some fragmentary personnel department correspondence that documents the company's industrial relations policies. There is a file of major union contracts (1946-1965). Also included are transcribed copies of arbitration records and grievance proceedings, as well as a scrapbook describing the 1938-1939 strike at the Ilion, New York plant.

From the description of Records, 1830-1975 (bulk 1920-1955). (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122547836