Robert Tarrant...
As Edwin Darby descibes it...
| "Robert Tarrant was the owner of a machine shop and forge located at the foot of Illinois Street near the Chicago River. Tarrant's main business was making and repairing iron work for ships in the Lakes trade. Intrigued with Felt's ideas, he signed Felt on as a helper at $6 a week and gave him a bench in the rear of the shop where Felt could work on his invention. Over a period of time, Tarrant advanced Felt about $5,000 for materials and parts and other expense involved in the development of the calculating machine. In return for his investment, Tarrant got an equal interest in a partnership the two formed in 1887 and in Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company when it was incorporated two years later." |
Little more is recorded about Tarrant once he and Felt split the business in 1902. With effective control, it would have been possible for Felt to have changed the company name and it is much to his credit that he chose not to.
Altho Tarrant thereafter played almost no role in the operation or success of the enterprise, he and his descendants apparantly retained most or all of their 49% ownership until 1945 when Tarrant's son died. His demise created an estate tax problem for the families which resulted in the company becoming a public corporation.
J.A.V.Turck...
The sequencially prior patent (#1,072,933) was issued to Felt alone and was the last of five covering the ill-fated E-model design. The "joint" design was for the simpler mechanism used in the F-model primarily to support the "Controlled Key" feature. It is easy to speculate that a friendly competition existed between Felt and Turck concerning the best way to implement this important concept.
Over the years several more patents were issued to Turek alone including the critical November, 1920 patents that covered the improved clearing mechanism of the popular H and J models of the 1920s.
While F&T was slow in introducing a motor-driven model (the K-model appeared in late 1934), Turck had already been granted a patent in March of 1921 on a "power-driven" design that was clearly well ahead of its time.
After Felt's death in 1930, its probable that Turck took over design responsibilities for the concern. The dual-register SuperTotalizer that appeared in 1934 was undoubtedly his work. It is not known how much longer he continued at Felt & Tarrant.
A little known fact of Dorr Eugene Felt's personal life was that he left no male heir. And while he dearly loved his four daughters, he is known to have stated after the birth of his fourth "Well, I give up". Certainly he had wished for a son at some point. This author's conjecture is that Felt may well have taken a fatherly interest in the younger Turck who shared his passion and talents for mechanical design. What is certain is that their relationship lasted some 20-30 years and greatly extended the life of shoebox Comptometers.
George Steninger Bollensen...
Kurt F. Ziehm...