James Henry Rand was born on May 29, 1859 in Tonawanda, New York, the second son and third of nine children of Calvin Gordon Rand, a schoolteacher and farmer, and Almira Hershe (Long) Rand. His father, a descendant of John Rand, one of the founders of Charlestown, Massachussets, was a native of Batavia, New York; he died when James was twelve. His mother was a great-grandchild of the first white child born on the Niagara frontier.
Rand attended a country school near Tonawanda and then a business school in nearby Brockport.
At eighteen he took his first job, as a railroad telegraph operator. Three years later he became a cashier in a Tonawanda bank. There his natural curiosity and passion for detail served him well.
Bank activity was increasing rapidly in the United States, and as the number of accounts grew, together with the number of bank services offered, the rising volume of paper work was becoming a serious problem. Rand noticed, while working at the Tonawanda bank, that bank clerks and bookkeepers spent an excessive amount of time searching for records in what were then "blind" card files, letter files, and ledgers, that is, files without dividers or indexes.
He created what became known as a "visible" index system of dividers, colored signal strips, and tabs. Rand's system substantially increased the speed and efficiency of bank personnel, and he saw great commercial possibilities for the general use of his system in business offices and warehouses, in fact everywhere that information had to be filed and quickly found. At first, however, Rand concentrated his attention on timesaving devices for banks. He formed his own firm, the Rand Ledger Company. His older brother, Benjamin Long Rand, served as vice-president and took charge of production, while Rand himself spent most of his time traveling to introduce potential users to his products and to solicit orders. The company's line of products was steadily supplemented by Rand's new inventions. These included index files for bank deposit tickets and checks, a stop-payment register, sorters, and similar devices. As sales increased, his firm acquired a nationwide reputation and opened sales offices in several major American cities.
His older son, James Henry Rand, Jr. (1886 - 1968), entered the family business after his graduation from Harvard in 1908 and ran the company from 1910 to 1914 during his father's illness. Their views differed, however, on how best to further the growth of the firm. The younger Rand urged that a million dollars be spent on a nationwide advertising campaign. When his father, who preferred less spectacular and expensive methods of promotion, vetoed the proposal, young Rand left the firm and, with $10, 000 of borrowed money, started his own business, the American Kardex Company, in 1915. The rivalry between father and son was always friendly; the latter wanted to prove to himself and to his father that he could prosper independently.
Within five years, his new company's gross sales had exceeded a million dollars, and he yielded to his mother's suggestion that father and son resume their business association.
In 1925 the two firms were combined as the Rand-Kardex Company, with the senior Rand as chairman and his son as president and general manager. Separately, the firms had been the nation's two largest manufacturers of record-keeping supplies; as merged, their holdings included factories in Canada and Germany, as well as 210 United States and foreign patents. The combined firms produced more than 4, 000 separate products and operated the world's largest distribution network: 4, 500 field representatives in 219 branch offices in the United States and 115 agencies in foreign countries.
Rand-Kardex's primary customers were banks, insurance companies, libraries, and government agencies, for all of whom accurate record keeping was essential. After their business reunion, the Rands began a vigorous program of mergers and acquisitions. These additions included the Library Bureau (which had originated the first vertical filing system in 1882) and the Safe-Cabinet Company (which pioneered fireproof record-keeping equipment).
The younger Rand's efforts led to the merger in 1927 of Rand-Kardex with the Remington Typewriter Company (which had introduced the first noiseless typewriter in 1909 and the first electric typewriter in 1925). The resulting firm, the Remington-Rand Company, including all subsidiaries, had assets of $73, 000, 000 and earned a net profit of $2, 800, 000 during its first year of combined operations. After 1927, when he became sixty-eight, James Rand, Sr. , played a less active role in business, limiting his function at Remington-Rand to that of a director.
He enjoyed his family life, his privacy, and his unblemished business reputation. For some years Rand had maintained a home at North Falmouth, Massachussets, and it was there that he died, at the age of eighty-five, of bronchopneumonia and arteriosclerosis. Burial was in Oak Grove Cemetery, Falmouth.
As a banker he developed the first commercial system of dividers, file tabs and index cards. James Sr. founded the Rand Ledger Company to manufacture the index system. These greatly speeded up the banking efficiency. Later he and his son created a new company dealing with filing systems and office supplies, mostly used by medical offices, American Kardex.
On January 8, 1884, Rand married Mary Jameson Scribner. They had five children: Adelaide Almira, James Henry, Mary Scribner, Mabel, and Philip.
