Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was an American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data. He was the founder of one of the companies that later merged and became IBM.
Personal life
Hollerith was born in
Buffalo, New York, where he spent his early childhood. He entered the
City College of New York in 1875 and graduated from the
Columbia University School of Mines with an "Engineer of Mines" degree in 1879. In 1880 he listed himself as a mining engineer while living in Manhattan, and completed his Ph.D. in 1890 at Columbia University. He eventually moved to
Washington, D.C., living in
Georgetown, with a home on 29th Street and ultimately a factory for manufacturing his tabulating machines at 31st Street and the
C&O; Canal, where today there is a commemorative plaque placed by
IBM.
Electronic tabulation of data
At the urging of
John Shaw Billings, Hollerith developed a mechanism using electrical connections to trigger a counter, recording information. A key idea was that data could be coded numerically. Hollerith saw that if numbers could be punched in specified locations on a card, in the now familiar rows and columns, then the cards could be counted or sorted mechanically and the data recorded. A description of this system,
An Electric Tabulating System (1889), was submitted by Hollerith to Columbia University as his doctoral thesis, and is reprinted in Randell's book. On January 8, 1889, Hollerith was issued U.S. Patent 395,782, claim 2 of which reads:
The herein-described method of compiling statistics, which consists in recording separate statistical items pertaining to the individual by holes or combinations of holes punched in sheets of electrically non-conducting material, and bearing a specific relation to each other and to a standard, and then counting or tallying such statistical items separately or in combination by means of mechanical counters operated by electro-magnets the circuits through which are controlled by the perforated sheets, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.
Inventions and businesses
Hollerith had left teaching and begun working for the United States Census Office in the year he filed his first patent application. Titled "Art of Compiling Statistics", it was filed on September 23, 1884; U.S. Patent 395,782 was granted on January 8, 1889.
Hollerith built machines under contract for the Census Office, which used them to tabulate the 1890 census in only one year. The 1880 census had taken eight years. Hollerith then started his own business in 1896, founding the Tabulating Machine Company. Most of the major census bureaus around the world leased his equipment and purchased his cards, as did major insurance companies. To make his system work, he invented the first automatic card-feed mechanism and the first key punch (that is, a punch operated by a keyboard); a skilled operator could punch 200–300 cards per hour. He also invented a tabulator. The 1890 Tabulator was hardwired to operate only on 1890 Census cards. A control panel in his 1906 Type I Tabulator allowed it to do different jobs without being rebuilt (the first step towards programming). These inventions were among the foundations of the modern information processing industry.
In 1911 four corporations, including Hollerith's firm, merged to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR). Under the presidency of Thomas J. Watson, it was renamed International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in 1924.
See also
Hollerith constant
Joseph Marie Jacquard
Punched card
Tabulating machine
Notes
Further reading
External links
in
Georgetown in Washington, D.C.]]
Hollerith's patents from 1889:
Computer History Museum: Hollerith 1889 patent
IBM Archives: Herman Hollerith
IBM Archives: Tabulating Machine Co. plant
Early Office Museum: Punched Card Tabulating Machines
Hollerith page at the National Hall of Fame
Map to his gravesite
Columbia University Computing History: Herman Hollerith
The Norwegian Historical Data Center: Census 1900 Includes a description of the use of Hollerith machines ("complicated, American enumeration machines"), together with illustrations.
– Hollerith's house
Category:American statisticians
Category:American inventors
Category:Computer pioneers
Category:1860 births
Category:1929 deaths
Category:National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees
Category:People from Buffalo, New York
Category:City College of New York alumni
Category:Columbia University alumni
Category:Columbia Engineering alumni
