Modern Corporation

John Patterson 1867 founded the National Cash Register Company. He bought the rights to the new invention after he saw how it increased profits at his struggling general store. His company became a proving ground for modern employee relations, marketing, and manufacturing systems. NCR factorie were among the first to deviate from the nineteenth-century sweatshop and to introduce such amenities as subsidized hot meals at the company cafeteria, a dispensary, and the first paid suggestion system.

Still, Patterson was hardly the model employer. His credo: "When a man gets indispensable, let's fire him." One doomed executive returned from lunch to find his desk on fire. Another exec, Thomas J. Watson, left the firm vowing to build "a business bigger than the one John H. Patterson has." The new company, which followed the NCR model, was IBM (now headed, incidentally, by Lou Gerstner '63).

How does Dartmouth figure into Patterson's success? Not hugely. In later life Patterson credited Dartmouth with filling him with "useless knowledge." He distrusted college-educated men and harbored a special dislike for engineers and accountants.

Patterson liked the new cash register so much, he created a company,