Before cash registers entered common use, business owners had no way to reliably track how much money entered and left a store’s cash box. Businesses grew swiftly during the Gilded Age, which occurred between the end of the American Civil War and 1900. This rapid growth caused businesses to hire staff in a rushed manner without much vetting, which resulted in a scourge of employee theft across the business community (1). The spread of shoplifting and the resulting damage to businesses demanded a solution. The solution came in the form of a new invention called the cash register.