Editing Herman Hollerith (section)

==Inventions and businesses==
[[Image:Hollerith Punched Card.jpg|thumb|Hollerith punched card]]
[[Image:Hollerith Herman grave.jpg|thumb|Hollerith's grave at [[Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)|Oak Hill Cemetery]] in [[Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)|Georgetown]] in Washington, D.C.<ref name= cemy_map>{{cite web|url=http://www.oakhillcemeterydc.org/map.html|title=Oak Hill Cemetery Map|website=oakhillcemeterydc.org|access-date=January 8, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151218085650/http://www.oakhillcemeterydc.org/map.html|archive-date=December 18, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>]]

Hollerith had left teaching and began 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.<ref name=HPatent/>

Hollerith initially did business under his own name, as ''The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System'', specializing in [[Unit record equipment|punched card data processing equipment]].{{sfn|Austrian|1982|p=153}} He provided [[Tabulating machine|tabulators]] and other machines under contract for the Census Office, which used them for the [[1890 United States census|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, reduced the time required to process the census from eight years for the [[1880 United States census|1880 census]] to six years for the 1890 census.<ref>Report of the Commissioner of Labor in Charge of The Eleventh Census to the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1895, Washington, D.C., July 29, 1895, Page 9: "You may confidently look for the rapid reduction of the force of this office after the 1st of October, and the entire cessation of clerical work during the present calendar year. ... The condition of the work of the Census Division and the condition of the final reports show clearly that the work of the Eleventh Census will be completed at least two years earlier than was the work of the Tenth Census." Carroll D. Wright Commissioner of Labor in Charge.</ref>

In 1896, Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company (in 1905 renamed The Tabulating Machine Company).{{sfn|Engelbourg|1954|p=52}} 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 and Wales|England & Wales]], [[Italy]], [[Germany]], [[Russia]], [[Austria]], [[Canada]], [[France]], [[Norway]], [[Puerto Rico]], [[Cuba]], and the [[Philippines]], and again in the [[1900 United States census|1900 U.S. census]].<ref name="Cruz"/>

He invented the first automatic card-feed mechanism and the first [[keypunch]]. The 1890 Tabulator was [[Electrical wiring|hardwired]] to operate on 1890 Census cards. A [[plugboard|control panel]] in his 1906 Type I Tabulator simplified rewiring for different jobs. The 1920s [[Plugboard|removable control panel]] supported prewiring and near instant job changing. These inventions were among the foundations of the data processing industry, and Hollerith's punched cards (later used for [[Punched card input/output|computer input/output]]) continued in use for almost a century.<ref name="Mackenzie_1980">{{cite book |url=https://textfiles.meulie.net/bitsaved/Books/Mackenzie_CodedCharSets.pdf |title=Coded Character Sets, History and Development |series=The Systems Programming Series |author-last=Mackenzie |author-first=Charles E. |date=1980 |edition=1 |publisher=[[Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.]] |isbn=978-0-201-14460-4 |lccn=77-90165 |page=7 |access-date=2019-08-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160526172151/https://textfiles.meulie.net/bitsaved/Books/Mackenzie_CodedCharSets.pdf |archive-date=May 26, 2016 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

In 1911, four corporations, including Hollerith's firm, were amalgamated to form a fifth company, the [[Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company]] (CTR).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/documents/pdf/faq.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050514230534/http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/documents/pdf/faq.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=May 14, 2005| title=IBM Archives: Frequently Asked Questions}} Some accounts of the forming CTR state that only three corporations were included. This reference notes that only three of the four corporations are represented in the CTR name. That may be the reason for the differing accounts.</ref> Under the presidency of [[Thomas J. Watson]], CTR was renamed [[IBM|International Business Machines Corporation]] (IBM) in 1924. By 1933 The Tabulating Machine Company name had disappeared as subsidiary companies were subsumed by IBM.<ref>{{cite book | author = William Rodgers | year = 1969 | title = THINK: A Biography of the Watsons and IBM | url = https://archive.org/details/thinkbiographyof00rodg | url-access = registration | page=[https://archive.org/details/thinkbiographyof00rodg/page/83 83]| isbn = 9780297000235 }}</ref>