Herman Hollerith
Invented the tabulating machine, which was crucial for processing the 1890 US Census.
Most quoted
"I came to the conclusion that if I could devise a mechanism whereby the items of information could be recorded by means of holes in cards, and then combined and counted by electrical means, the whole census problem could be solved."
— from Interview/Recollection, 1889
"My invention comprises a traveling carrier for the card, a series of electrically-controlled counters, and means for bringing the card and the counters into cooperative relation."
— from Patent Application, 1889
"The problem of handling statistics by mechanical means is one of the most interesting and important problems that has ever been presented to the inventor."
— from An Electric Tabulating System, 1889
All quotes by Herman Hollerith (430)
Do not try to make the machine do too many things at once. Let it excel at one operation.
The census of 1880 was still being compiled when we began the census of 1890. That will not happen again.
My work is not about replacing men, but about freeing them from drudgery.
A fact, once recorded in a standardized form, becomes a tool for endless analysis.
The railroad companies, the life insurance offices—they all have the same problem of handling vast lists of items.
Simplicity and durability are the two cardinal virtues of a business machine.
The click of the counter is the sound of a fact being registered.
I am an engineer, not a politician. I build systems that work.
The value of the tabulation increases with the square of the number of cards you can compare.
You can no more take a census without a system than you can build a bridge without calculations.
Every hole tells a story, and the machine is the reader.
The great gain is in the cross-tabulations, the connections between facts that were previously invisible.
I have harnessed a spark to do the work of a thousand clerks.
The machine does not think. It obeys. It is the human who must ask the right question.
Progress in business statistics waits upon progress in the machinery of computation.
My first model was made of a cardboard box, some pins, and a clockwork mechanism.
The problem of the census was my opportunity.
Do not fear the machine; fear the error in the data.
A standardized card is a universal language for facts.
The investment in the machine is returned tenfold in the saving of time and the accuracy of results.
Contemporaries of Herman Hollerith
Other Engineerings born within 50 years of Herman Hollerith (1860–1929).