James Rand Jr.

James Henry Rand Jr. (November 18, 1886 – June 3, 1968) was an American industrialist who revolutionized the business record industry. He founded American Kardex, an office equipment and office supplies firm which later merged with his father's company, the Rand Ledger Corporation. Rand later bought out and merged with several other companies, notably the Remington Typewriter Company, to form Remington Rand. In 1955, Rand merged his corporation with the Sperry Corporation to form Sperry-Rand, one of the earliest and largest computer manufacturing companies in the United States.

James H. Rand Jr. was born on November 18, 1886, to James and Mary (Jameson Scribner) Rand in North Tonawanda, New York. He was a descendant of John Rand, one of the founders of Charlestown, Massachusetts. His father, James Rand, worked in the banking industry for many years. Realizing that bank clerks had to thumb through large numbers of index cards for information, James Rand Sr. invented the first commercial system of dividers, file tabs and index cards and founded the Rand Ledger Company to manufacture the index system.

James H. Rand Jr. graduated from high school and received a bachelor's degree in 1908 from Harvard University. He joined his father's company, and quickly rose through the ranks of management. In 1910, he married Miriam Smith.

James Rand Sr. fell seriously ill in 1910. At his father's wish, James H. Rand Jr. assumed control of the Rand Ledger Company from 1910 to 1914. Rand Sr. resumed control of the company in 1915. However, James Rand Jr. soon clashed with his father over his proposal to undertake a million dollar advertising campaign to boost company sales. "Get out and make a living and don't ask me for a dollar!" the elder Rand is reported to have said. James Rand Jr. left Rand Ledger in 1915. He borrowed $10,000 from his uncle (a bank trustee) and formed his own filing and index supply company, American Kardex, later that year.

Within five years, American Kardex grew to be one of the leading office supply companies in the United States. It was roughly equal in revenues to Rand Ledger, and the two companies easily dominated the American office supply market. In 1920, American Kardex had more than $1 million in gross sales. The company's products were widely used in the health care field ("filling a Kardex" became common nomenclature for entering data into a patient's medical record), and demand in Europe was so strong that Rand soon built a factory in Germany. In 1921, James Rand Jr. founded the Kardex Institute to collect and disseminate information on good business record-keeping and filing practices.

As competition between American Kardex and Rand Ledger intensified, Mary Rand brokered a reconciliation between father and son. In 1925, the two men agreed that American Kardex should purchase Rand Ledger. The new company, Rand Kardex, was the largest office supply company in the United States. James Rand Sr. became the company chairman, while James Rand Jr. was its president and general manager.

Rand published his thoughts on business in a book, Assuring Business Profits, or How to Run Any Business on a Big Business Basis.

James Rand Jr. soon took the company on a buying spree. The company became the largest supplier of office furniture in the world through its 1926 acquisition of Globe Wernicke Co., but was forced to divest itself of the business later that year after an antitrust action. Between 1927 and 1929, the company merged with or bought out a number of companies, including Index Visible, Inc. (which had been founded by Yale University economist Irving Fisher), Safe-Cabinet Co. (which had invented the fire-proof safe), Library Bureau, Inc. (which had invented the filing cabinet), Dalton Adding Machine and Baker-Vawter Ledger. For a brief time in 1926, the company was known as Rand Kardex Bureau, Inc. In 1927, James Rand Jr. merged his company with the Remington Typewriter Co. (which had invented the noiseless and electric typewriters) and changed its name to Remington Rand. Company sales grew from $5 million in 1927 to $500 million in 1954.