Herman Hollerith

Herman Hollerith
Hollerith c. 1888
Born	(1860-02-29)February 29, 1860 Buffalo, New York, U.S.
Died	November 17, 1929(1929-11-17) (aged 69) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting place	Oak Hill Cemetery
Education	City College of New York Columbia University (MinEng, PhD)
Occupations	Statistician inventor businessman
Known for	Electromechanical tabulation of punched card data IBM
Spouse	Lucia Beverly (Talcott) Hollerith
Children	6
Awards	Elliott Cresson Medal (1890) World's Columbian Exposition, Bronze Medal (1892) National Inventors Hall of Fame (1990)

Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards to assist in summarizing information and, later, in accounting. His invention of the punched card tabulating machine, patented in 1884, marks the beginning of the era of mechanized binary code and semiautomatic data processing systems, and his concept dominated that landscape for nearly a century.^[1][2]

Hollerith founded a company that was amalgamated in 1911 with several other companies to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. In 1924, the company was renamed "International Business Machines" (IBM) and became one of the largest and most successful companies of the 20th century. Hollerith is regarded as one of the seminal figures in the development of data processing.^[3]