Inventor Name
Mays, James F.
Repository
University of North Carolina Library
Southern Historical Collection
CB# 3926, Wilson Library
Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890
919-962-1345
http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/shc
Physical Description
1.5 linear feet
Summary
James Francis Mays was born in 1860 to a well-connected Southern family. His parents were lawyer and Confederate army Captain Samuel E. Mays and Catherine Toombs Mosely, cousin of the first Secretary of the Confederacy, General Robert Toombs. James Mays married Maud Eliza Walton of Kingston, Ga., a member of another established Southern family, in 1887. Mays was trained as a civil engineer and accountant, but his passion was inventing. Heseems to have earned his living mainly as a door-to-door salesman in Atlanta, Tampa, Jacksonville, and Birmingham, until 1918 when the prospect of manufacturing his "Mays Calculating Machine" took him and his family to Lexington, N.C. James died in 1938 and Maud died in 1955; both are buried in Lexington. Papers document the career of James F. Mays, especially his inventions and his attempts to manufacture Mays Calculating Machine. Included are many diagrams, drawings, notes, and blueprints. There is also large correspondence from Washington, D.C., patent attorney James L. Norris, who handled most of May’s patent applications.
Finding Aid
http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/m/Mays,James_F.html