The+Punch+Card+System+-+Andrew+Gorham

=The Punch Card System - Andrew Gorham=



**In 1881 Herman Hollerith began working on a machine to arrange census data more efficiently than by the conventional hand methods. He result he created was a stiff piece of paper that contained commands for automated machinery or data collection. The punch card system used electricity to read, count, and sort punched cards representing the data that was collected by the census takers. These machines were first used on a large scale for the 1890 census and accomplished in one year what would have taken hand tabulating ten years.**
 * This invention changed the way that the census was taken and cut the time it took by a scale of ten. With the use of the punch card machine, the US Census had the ability to collect more accurate data in a much shorter amount of time, revolutionizing the Census collection process and in turn helping the United States better prepare for the future. ** **In 1896, Herman Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company, so that he could sell his** ** invention and in 1924, his company became a part of IBM. Punch cards continued to be used throughout the 20th century and were used in computers up until the late 1970's. **

===Bellis, Mary. "Herman Hollerith - Herman Hollerith Invented Computer Punch Cards." About.com Inventors. December 20, 2013. Accessed February 13, 2014. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blhollerith.htm.===

Comments
Very interesting. Maybe you would want to clarify how exactly it changed life for the average person though. -Carter

I never would've thought of this- what an interesting idea! Maybe a few more illustrations and explanations. - Ollie