Carl Friden (April 11, 1891 – April 29, 1945) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

-born, American mechanical engineer and businessman who founded the Friden Calculating Machine Company (

Friden, Inc. Friden Calculating Machine Company (Friden, Inc.) was an American manufacturer of typewriters and mechanical, later electronic calculators. It was founded by Carl Friden in San Leandro, California, in 1934. History In 1957, Friden purchased t ...

Background

Carl Mauritz Fredrik Friden was born in

Alvesta Alvesta () is a locality and the seat of Alvesta Municipality in Kronoberg County, Sweden, with 8,017 inhabitants in the urban area in 2010. Alvesta is an important railway junction, joining the Stockholm–Malmö–Copenhagen railway wi ...

Kronoberg County Kronoberg County (; sv, Kronobergs län) is a county or '' län'' in southern Sweden. Kronoberg is one of three counties in the province of Småland. It borders the counties of Skåne, Halland, Jönköping, Kalmar, and Blekinge. Its capital is ...

, Sweden. A company biography of Carl Friden from the 1960s or before stated that he was born Carl Bengtsson, but later took Fridén as his surname. In 1912, he graduated as a mechanical engineer from the

Royal Institute of Technology The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technolo ...

in Stockholm. Friden became a mechanical engineer representing the Swedish Match Trust. In 1913, Friden traveled to in London, England, to assemble match machines for his company. In 1914, he traveled to Australia with the same purpose in mind, but was stranded there when

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

broke out. In the interim he worked on his ideas for designing a more reliable calculator. Two years later he headed to San Francisco on an American steamer to get part way home, but that is where he stayed. He found his place in the Marchant Calculating Machine Co. of

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

within a year. When the U.S. Government made Marchant discontinue its current model because it violated some German patents, Carl Friden filled the void with his own model. Friden became the chief designer of the Marchant Calculating Machine Company. While there he introduced his new design which reduced the number of calculator parts by one-third, thus increasing their reliability. Friden continued to develop the modified-pinwheel machines at Marchant during the 1920s. His machines were robust and quickly became popular.

Friden Calculating Machine Company

Carl Friden left the Marchant Calculating Machine Company during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

in 1934 to establish his own calculator company at

San Leandro, California San Leandro (Spanish for " St. Leander") is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area; between Oakland to the northwest, and Ashland, Castro Valley, and Hayward to the sou ...

. Four investors came to the firm's aid with funds to add to Carl Friden's limited finances. These investors were Walter S. Johnson and his brother-in-law Charles T. Gruenhagen (1885–1968), both executives with the

American Forest Products Corporation American Forest Products Corporation (AFPC) was a Fortune 500 company initially producing wooden boxes and shipping materials but expanding into the timber, sawmill, and lumber industries. The company began in the 1920s and operated under the s ...

, together with their associates, J. B. Lewis of the American Box Company and C. A. Webster of the Stockton Box Company. Both companies were affiliated with American Forest Products Corporation. Carl Friden already had a number of patents to his credit, including an early calculating machine. Friden's company introduced a calculator that included a

square root In mathematics, a square root of a number is a number such that ; in other words, a number whose ''square'' (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or  ⋅ ) is . For example, 4 and −4 are square roots of 16, because . E ...

function in 1952, then went on in 1963 to introduce the model EC-130, a fully transistorized electronic calculator. In 1963 the company was purchased by the

Singer Corporation Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing machines, it was renamed Singer Ma ...

Personal

Friden married Hildur Victoria Svenson in 1914 in

Stockholm, Sweden Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropoli ...

. They had two children, Stanley Mauritz Victor Friden (1917) and Barbro Friden. Carl married his second wife Emita Alatorre in 1940 and had two children: Eric Donald Friden (1941) and Linda Marlice Friden (1943). They lived together in

Pleasanton, California Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the Amador Valley, it is a suburb in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 79,871 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. In 200 ...

at their ranch ''Calmita Acres'' where they entertained celebrities including

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

Ernest Lawrence Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation fo ...

Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...

as well as various Scandinavian dignitaries. Carl Friden was the first president of the Swedish Club of San Francisco and was instrumental in founding the Department of Scandinavian at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. The

Order of Vasa The Royal Order of Vasa () is a Swedish order of chivalry, awarded to citizens of Sweden for service to state and society especially in the fields of agriculture, mining and commerce. It was instituted on 29 May 1772 by King Gustav III. It was u ...

was conferred upon Carl Friden by King

Gustaf V of Sweden Gustaf V (Oscar Gustaf Adolf; 16 June 1858 – 29 October 1950) was King of Sweden from 8 December 1907 until his death in 1950. He was the eldest son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Sophia of Nassau, a half-sister of Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxem ...

in April 1945 in recognition of his distinguished achievements. He has been described as one of the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

's most prominent Swedish-Americans and is discussed in Muriel Beroza's book ''Golden Gate Swedes''. He was a member of the

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

, a

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

, and a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

. Carl Friden died of cancer in 1945 and was buried at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, California.

References

External links

Friden tribute
website. Retrieved March 4, 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:Friden, Carl 1891 births 1945 deaths People from Alvesta Municipality KTH Royal Institute of Technology alumni American manufacturing businesspeople Swedish emigrants to the United States American Lutherans People from San Leandro, California 20th-century American inventors Deaths from cancer in California 20th-century Lutherans

Background

Friden Calculating Machine Company

Personal

References

Related reading

External links