Hollerith, Herman (1860-1929)

US inventor of a mechanical tabulating machine, the first device for high-volume data processing. Hollerith's tabulator was widely publicized after being successfully used in the 1890 census. The firm he established, the Tabulating Machine Company, was later one of the founding companies of IBM.

Hollerith was born in Buffalo, New York, and attended the Columbia University School of Mines. From 1884 to 1896 he worked for the US Patent Office.

Working on the 1880 US census, he saw the need for an automated recording process for data, and had the idea of punching holes in cards or rolls of paper. By 1889 he had developed machines for recording, counting, and collating census data. The system was used in 1891 for censuses in several countries, and was soon adapted to the needs of government departments and businesses that handled large quantities of data.