Herman Hollerith

Herman Hollerith
File:Hollerith.jpg Herman Hollerith circa 1888
Born	(1860-02-29)February 29, 1860 Buffalo, New York
Died	Washington, D.C.
Resting place	Oak Hill Cemetery
Education	City College of New York (1875) Columbia University School of Mines (1879)
Occupation	inventor, businessman
Known for	electromechanical tabulation of punched card data; IBM
Title	Ph.D. (1890, Columbia University)
Spouse(s)	Lucia Beverley Talcott (1865-12-03)December 3, 1865– (m. 1890–1929)
Children	Lucia Beverley (1891–1982) Herman (1892–1976) Charles (1893–1972) Nannie Talcott (1898–1985) Richard (1900–1967) Virginia (1902–1994)
Awards	Elliott Cresson Medal (1890) World's Columbian Exposition, Bronze Medal (1892) National Inventors Hall of Fame (1990) Medaille d'Or, Exposition Universelle de 1889

Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was an American inventor who developed an electromechanical punched card tabulator to assist in summarizing information and, later, accounting. He was the founder of The Tabulating Machine Company that was consolidated in 1911 with three other companies to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, later renamed IBM. Hollerith is regarded as one of the seminal figures in the development of data processing. His invention of the punched card tabulating machine marks the beginning of the era of semiautomatic data processing systems, and his concept dominated that landscape for nearly a century.

Personal life

Herman Hollerith was born the son of German immigrant Prof. Georg Hollerith from Großfischlingen (near Neustadt an der Weinstraße) in Buffalo, New York, where he spent his early childhood. He entered the City College of New York in 1875, graduated from the Columbia University School of Mines with an "Engineer of Mines" degree in 1879 at age 19, and completed his Ph.D. there in 1890. In 1882 Hollerith joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he taught mechanical engineering and conducted his first experiments with punched cards. He eventually moved to Washington, D.C., living in Georgetown, with a home on 29th Street and a factory for manufacturing his tabulating machines at 31st Street and the C&O Canal, where today there is a commemorative plaque installed by IBM. He died in Washington D.C. of a heart attack.

Electromechanical tabulation of data

Main article: Hollerith machines

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 encoded by the locations of holes in a card. Hollerith determined that data punched in specified locations on a card, in the now-familiar rows and columns, could be counted or sorted mechanically. 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:

Hollerith tabulating machine and sorting box.

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 punched card

Hollerith had left teaching and begun working for the United States Census Bureau 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 card puncher used by the United States Census Bureau

Hollerith built machines under contract for the Census Office, which used them for the 1890 census. The net effect of the many changes from the 1880 census: the larger population, the data items to be collected, the Census Bureau headcount, the scheduled publications, and the use of Hollerith's electromechanical tabulators, was to reduce the time required to process the census from eight years for the 1880 census to six years for the 1890 census. In 1896 Hollerith started his own business when he founded The Tabulating Machine Company. Many major census bureaus around the world leased his equipment and purchased his cards, as did major insurance companies. Hollerith's machines were used for censuses in England, Italy, Germany, Russia, Austria, Canada, France, Norway, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, and again in the 1900 census. To improve his system, he invented the first automatic card-feed mechanism and the first keypunch (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 on 1890 Census cards. A plugboard control panel in his 1906 Type I Tabulator allowed it to do different jobs without being rewired. These inventions were among the foundations of the data processing industry and Hollerith's punched cards (later used for recording machine-readable computer programs) continued in use for almost a century.

In 1911 four corporations, including Hollerith's firm, were consolidated to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR). Under the presidency of Thomas J. Watson, it was renamed International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in 1924.

Death and legacy

Hollerith is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., as is his son, Herman Hollerith Jr.

Hollerith cards were named after the elder Herman Hollerith, as were Hollerith constants (also sometimes called Hollerith strings), an early type of string constant declaration (in computer programming).

His great-grandson, the Rt. Rev. Herman Hollerith IV is the Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Southern Virginia, and another great-grandson, Randolph Marshall Hollerith, is an Episcopal priest in Richmond, Virginia.

Further reading

For more on Punched card history, technology, see: Unit record equipment#Further reading

For IBM see: IBM#Further reading and History of IBM#Further reading

• From the Columbia Univ. History site: This article is the basis for his 1890 Columbia Ph.D. Extracts reprinted in (Randell, 1982).
• From Randell (1982),"... brief... fascinating article... describes the way in which tabulators and sorters were used on ... 100 million cards ... 1890 census."
• Includes extensive, detailed, description of Hollerith's first machines and their use for the 1890 census.

External links

Hollerith's grave at Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown in Washington, D.C.

• Hollerith's patents from 1889: US 395781  US 395782  US 395783 
• Hollerith's 1890 Census Tabulator
• 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
• The Research notes on Herman Hollerith collection at Hagley Museum and Library includes the research materials Geoffrey Austrian used to write Herman Hollerith: Forgotten Giant of Information Processing.
• Richard Hollerith Papers at Hagley Museum and Library. Richard Hollerith was the grandson of Herman Hollerith and part of this collection documents the sale and settlement of the Herman Hollerith estate following the death of his last remaining child, Virginia.