Dorr Felt

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Dorr E. Felt (March 18, 1862 – August 7, 1930) was an American inventor and businessman who helped shape early computing. He created the Comptometer, one of the first successful calculating machines, and the Comptograph, the first printing adding machine. He and Robert Tarrant founded the Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company in 1889, which remained a major calculator maker for many decades.

Felt was born on a farm in Beloit, Wisconsin. He left home at 14 to work in a machine shop and moved to Chicago at 18, where he worked as a foreman in a rolling mill and started to develop the Comptometer. He built a prototype during Thanksgiving in 1884 using simple materials. He and Tarrant partnered in 1887 and incorporated the company in 1889. Felt earned many patents—46 in the United States and 25 abroad. The original macaroni-box prototype and the first Comptograph are now in the Smithsonian’s collection.

He married Agnes McNulty in 1891, and they had four daughters. In 1889 he received the John Scott Medal from The Franklin Institute for his invention. After World War I, Felt served as an ambassador for the Department of Commerce to study labor abroad. He was also an avid photographer and traveler.

Felt built a lakeside estate on Lake Michigan called Shore Acres Farm and a large summer home called the Big House for his family. Agnes died in 1928, and Dorr Felt died in Chicago in 1930 at age 68. He is buried at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago. The Felt & Tarrant Company later changed hands after World War II.