In 1911,
Jay Randolph Monroe first saw the Baldwin Calculator, the invention of
Frank Stephen Baldwin. Although Mr. Baldwin's machine had been patented in 1874 and had been judged by the
Franklin Institute as the most noteworthy invention of that year winning the
John Scott Medal, it had not been developed for commercial use. Mr. Monroe recognized the merits of the Baldwin Calculator, and in April 1912 he organized the Monroe Calculating Machine Company, and in a small rented room near
Newark, New Jersey, the manufacture of the first Monroe Adding-Calculator was begun. The following year the firm moved to
Orange, New Jersey. The factory personnel consisted of only nine men and the entire heavy factory equipment was a lathe and two small presses. Even with these meager tools, tolerances were maintained to within thousandths of an inch to insure the accurate performance of the finished machine. The first Monroe was offered to the business world in 1914. In 1932, the company was awarded the Franklin Institute's
John Price Wetherill Medal. For many years, Monroe was headquartered in
Orange, New Jersey and
Morris Plains, New Jersey with its manufacturing plants in New Jersey, Bristol, Virginia and
Amsterdam. In 1958, the company was acquired by
Litton Industries. Monroe also sold product overseas, advertising, (e.g.) ‘the world’s first really low-cost electronic computer’ (£12,500-
Monrobot, 1962) in the UK from offices at
Bush House, London. Litton sold Monroe via a
Leveraged buyout to a group of private investors in 1984. In the mid-1980s, the company diversified and began carrying a line of private-labeled copiers (manufactured by Mita Corp.) and cross-cut paper shredders, but those items have been discontinued. In the 1970s and 1980s, the company had some 300 sales and service branch offices in the United States. In 1972, Monroe announced a pocket-sized electronic display calculator at $269. As low-cost electronic calculators from Japan became readily available through retail distribution, the mechanical calculator companies like Monroe,
Friden, and
Marchant declined even as they introduced
programmable calculators. In 1980, the company name was changed to "Monroe Systems for Business". This change in name was to reflect the diversification of the company from a calculator-only company to one which addressed the broader needs of the office. During this period, Monroe introduced bookkeeping machines, magnetic stripe ledger card accounting machines, programmable calculators, computers, copiers, facsimile and shredders. Since 2016, Monroe Systems for Business has been owned by Arlington Industries. Bill Ault serves as chief operating officer. In 2019, Monroe acquired Typewriters.com, a typewriter supplier. It also began selling accounting products. Also in 2019, Monroe became an
Amazon channel partner. ==Products==