Herman Hollerith patents his electric tabulating machine
- When
- 1889–1890
- Where
- United States
- Episodes
- 2
Herman Hollerith, a German-American statistician, developed an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards to assist in data processing. His invention, patented in 1889, marked the beginning of mechanized binary code and semiautomatic data processing systems. Hollerith's method was used for the 1890 U.S. census, significantly reducing processing time. His work laid the foundations for the data processing industry, with his punched cards remaining in use for nearly a century.
Episodes
- Patent Issuance
Hollerith was issued U.S. Patent 395,782 on January 8, 1889, for his electric tabulating machine.
- 1890 Census
Hollerith's tabulating machine was used for the 1890 U.S. census, reducing processing time from eight years to six years.
Background and detail
Background. Herman Hollerith, born in Buffalo, New York, in 1860, graduated from the Columbia School of Mines in 1879. In 1882, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he conducted experiments with punched cards. Inspired by conductors using holes punched in railway tickets, Hollerith invented a method for recording data on a machine-readable medium, leading to the development of the tabulating machine.
Impact. Hollerith's tabulating machine was used for the 1890 U.S. census, reducing the time required to process the census from eight years for the 1880 census to six years. His method was adopted by the U.S. government for the work of the census bureau, and his inventions were among the foundations of the data processing industry.
People involved
- Herman Hollerith · Inventor
Sources
- Herman Hollerith Wikipedia, revision of 2026-02-24
- Tabulating machine Wikipedia, revision of 2026-06-01
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.