Hollerith punched-card tabulation begins for the 1890 United States Census
- When
- 1890–1896
- Where
- Census Bureau; Commercial entity
- Episodes
- 2
Herman Hollerith's punched-card tabulating machines were adopted by the United States Census Bureau to process the 1890 census returns. This adoption reduced processing time from eight years to six years. Hollerith provided the machines under contract, establishing a commercial lineage that eventually formed the Tabulating Machine Company.
Episodes
- 1890 Census Tabulation
Hollerith's machines processed the 1890 census returns, reducing processing time from eight years to six years.
- Tabulating Machine Company
Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896, establishing the commercial lineage for his technology.
Background and detail
Adoption. The Census Office used Hollerith's tabulators under contract for the 1890 census. The 1890 Tabulator was hardwired to operate on specific 1890 Census cards. This adoption marked the first time a census was compiled using Hollerith's methods, significantly reducing the time required to process the census from eight years to six years.
Commercial Lineage. Hollerith initially operated as The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System, specializing in punched card data processing equipment. In 1896, he founded the Tabulating Machine Company, renamed The Tabulating Machine Company in 1905. In 1911, his company was amalgamated with several other companies to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company.
People involved
- Herman Hollerith · Inventor and businessman who provided tabulators under contract for the 1890 census
Sources
- Herman Hollerith Wikipedia, revision of 2026-02-24
- 1890 United States census Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-07
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.