Debits and Credits Funny

This story is set in the days before computers, when accountants had to do everything manually on paper.

A man who worked in the accounting department of a large company was famous for never making a mistake. His ledgers always balanced to the penny and he never had to make any adjsuting entries to correct anything. All of his co-workers noticed that he had a routine to start his day. Everyday he would come to work, sit down and open the drawer of his desk. He would look inside and nod his head and then get to work. The day finally came when he retired from the company. At the end of his last day as soon as the door slammed shut behind him the other accountants raced over to his desk to see what was inside. They found a note taped to the bottom of the drawer that read "remember, debits go on the left".

The History of Accounting

Accounting the key to important phases of history, among the most important professions in economics and business. Accountants participated in the development of cities, trade, and the concepts of wealth and numbers. Accountants invented writing, participated in the development of money and banking, invented double bookkeeping that fueled the Italian Renaissance, saved many industrial revolution inventors and entrepreneurs from bankruptcy, helped develop the confidence in capital markets necessary for western capitalism, and are central to the information revolution that is trasnforming the global economy.

Social Security Early Accounting Operation

Baltimore 1936

The Issuing of Social Security numbers and the creation of earnings records on all Americans covered by Social Security was the largest bookeeping operation in the history of the world.

Early American Textbooks - Education

Check out the link below to the Monoghan Collection of Early American Books.

http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/exhibits/monaghan/content.htm

Fingerprinting - Criminal Justice

History of Fingerprint Technology
The beginning of fingerprints goes back to as early as the ancient times. According to historical findings, fingerprints were used on clay tablets for business transactions in ancient Babylon. In China, thumb prints were found on clay seals. But it was in the 19th century that the results of scientific studies were published and fingerprint technology began to be considered more seriously.Using the1800’s scientific studies as a foundation, fingerprint technology was already in use by the beginning of the 20th century. In 1924, FBI(Federal Bureau of Investigation) is already known to have maintained more than 250 million civil files of fingerprints for the purpose of criminal investigation and the identification of unknown casualties. In the late 1960's, fingerprint technology met a great turning point when it gave birth to 'live-scan,' a method to obtain a fingertip image without the use of print ink. When the FBI announced that it planned to stop using paper fingerprint cards inside their new Integrated AFIS (IAFIS) site, it was actually announcing the remarkable breakthrough of today's live-scan technology.But fingerprint identification technology did not stop as a forensic method only. It was officially used for business purposes in 1968 at one security corporation in Wall Street. Fingerprints are now being used as a secure and effective authentication method in numerous fields, including financial, medical, e-commerce and entrance control applications. Modern applications of fingerprint technology rely in large part on the development of exceptionally compact fingerprint sensors.

6 Shooter Pistol - Criminal Justice

A “six-shooter” is a revolver capable of firing six shots before reloading. This pistol was the service pistol given to police officers while on duty.

Police Baton - Criminal Justice

A truncheon or baton (also called a cosh, billystick, billy club, nightstick, sap, blackjack, stick) is essentially a stick of less than arms-length, usually made of wood, plastic, or metal, and carried by law enforcement, corrections, security, and (to a less common degree) military personnel for less-lethal self-defense, as well as control and to disperse combative and non-compliant subjects. A truncheon may be used to strike, jab, block, and aid in the application of armlocks. Truncheons are used to a lesser extent by non-officials because of their easy concealment, and are outlawed in many jurisdictions.

Dye Pack - Criminal Justice

A dye pack is a device used by banks to foil bank robbers non-violently.
Banks put dye packs in money given up during robberies. The dye pack is an incendiary device that explodes in a shower of colored ink (usually Disperse Red 9), and sometimes tear gas, intended to permanently stain the stolen money and the robber's hands with a bright red color. Before the pack is used, it is stored next to a magnetic plate that keeps the pack dormant. When it is removed from the magnetic plate to be put into a money bag, it becomes armed. Within the pack is a small radio receiver that receives a signal sent by a transmitter at the door. This activates a timer that causes the pack to explode some short time later, such as when the criminal is in his getaway car.

Father of Accounting

LUCA PACIOLI

A man who acquired amazing knowledge of diverse technical subjects such as, religion, business, military science, mathematic, medicine, art, music, law and language.

Read more about Luca Pacioli at www.answers.com/topic/luca-pacioli

History of Nursing

If you think of a woman dressed in scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck and a clipboard in her hands, you aren’t alone. An overwhelming majority of nurses in the United States today are women. However, nursing began as a practice reserved for men. The first nursing school was established in India in about 250 B.C., and only men were permitted to attend because men were viewed to be more pure than women.
It wasn’t until the 1800's that nursing became an organized practice. During the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale and 38 volunteer nurses were sent to the main British camp in Turkey. Nightingale and her staff immediately began to clean the hospital and equipment and reorganized patient care. Nightingale pushed for reform of hospital sanitation methods and invented methods of graphing statistical data. When she returned to Britain, Nightingale aided in the establishment of the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army. As a woman, Nightingale could not be appointed to the Royal Commission, but she composed the Commission’s report. Completed, the report was over 1,000 pages in length and included detailed statistical information. Nightingale’s work led to drastic changes in army medical care, the establishment of an Army Medical School and medical records, and ignited the growth of nursing as an organized profession. For these contributions, Nightingale is widely accepted as the founder of nursing.
In the early 1900's, nursing education was received primarily from hospitals rather than colleges or universities. New nursing students were responsible for tasks similar to that of maids – dusting, scrubbing and doing dishes. These students typically worked 10 to 12 hour shifts, seven days a week, for a period of two to three years. Later responsibilities included sterilization of equipment such as needles and bandages and cleaning operating rooms. After graduating, most worked in patient homes as private-duty nurses and were paid amounts comparable to today’s minimum wage. Their duties included bathing, administration of medications and enemas, and tending to wounds and sores.

First School Buses

The first school buses were horse drawn wagons. The invention of the concept of a school bus greatly influenced the schools. School districts were able to be enlarged allowing for more increased education to rural areas.

The "modern" school bus came into existance in the 1950's

Criminal Justice

Rarely was an early-day police vehicle equipped with a two-way radio, or even a receiving only (one-way) radio! Many of the officers who contributed photos of early police cars commented that the officer was not protected from the prisoners being transported. No information has been found indicating that any of these cars had any sort of cage or barrier to separate officer from offender. Many departments used the close coupled business coupe for police work, resulting in a transported prisoner sitting directly alongside the officer!

Criminal Justice

Adding in the Past

Burroughs Adding Machine, 1905
William S. Burroughs (1855-1898) invented an adding and listing machine with a full keyboard in the early 1880s, co-founded the American Arithmometer Co. in 1886 to produce the machine. After its Bankers' and Merchants' Registering Accountant machine failed in trials in 1890, the American Arithmometer Co. marketed its improved Burroughs Registering Accountant in 1892 for $475.

Final Total
The instruction booklet for the Burroughs Registering Accountant directs the operator requiring a total to “first execute one complete movement of the operating lever with no keys depressed. Then depress the total key and hold same depressed during a second complete movement of the operating lever.” The initial movement of the operating lever in this step returns the racks to their normal position. Due to the carrying process, some of the racks may be one tooth above their normal position. Pulling the operating lever without first depressing any of the keys accomplishes the racks’ return, so that a final total can be obtained.
Pressing the total key has the effect of reversing the mechanism which pushes and pulls the recording pinions into and out of gear with the racks. As you recall from step 1 of the "Reverse Stroke" operation described in Step by Step, the act of pulling the machine’s operating lever causes the wheels to be pulled out of gear. Therefore, the “reversing effect” of the total key enables the recording pinions to remain in place as the racks descend, thus retaining the sums they have been “recording.” After the bank clerk operating our machine presses the total key and pulls the operating lever forward, the racks descend. During this descent, the racks turn their respective recording pinions back to zero. In so doing, each rack causes the sector attached to it to turn through the numerical distance corresponding to its own recording pinion, which makes the appropriate typeface come up and print. If the bank clerk first mentioned in Step by Step wants to clear his Burroughs Registering Accountant for the purpose of entering a new string of numbers and then printing their sum total, he must continue depressing the total key while returning the operating lever to its original position. This will cause the recording pinions to remain out of gear and in their zero positions during the descent of the racks. The retention of these zero positions enables the bank clerk to deem his Registering Accountant “clear.”
However, if he wants to continue adding figures to the sum total, the bank clerk must allow the machine to hold the sum in its mechanical memory. In that case, he releases the total key before returning the operating lever to its starting position. In so doing he places the mechanism which throws the recording pinions in and out of gear in its original “unreversed” position. If you look back at step 2 of the "Reverse Stroke" operation explained in Step by Step, you will note that the recording pinions slip into gear when the operating lever is pushed back. The racks then return the pinions to their original positions, and thus the machine still retains the sum.