Frustrated with the grueling, expensive, labor-intensive 7.5 years it would take to tabulate the 1880 census, high-ranking census official, John Shaw Billings commissioned his future son-in-law, Herman Hollerith, to build a machine that would reduce the time it would take to calculate the next census.
Hollerith worked throughout the 1880’s on his device and won a speed tabulating contest against several other machines to win the contract to tabulate the 1890 census.
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
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