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 Proposed Edits to New 'Section 3.1' - Timeline, 1875-1925 

1885–1924: The origin of IBM
 Year  Gross Income (in $m)  Employees 1890   1895   1900   1905   1910   1915  4  1,672 1920  14  2,731 1925  13  3,698
 
The roots of IBM date back the the 1880s, decades before the development of electronic computers. The company was formed through a merger of three different companies: the Tabulating Machine Company (with origins in Washington, D.C. in the 1880s), the International Time Recording Company (founded 1900 in Endicott), and the Computing Scale Corporation (founded 1901 in Dayton, Ohio, USA)..  The merger was engineered by noted financier Charles Flint, and the new company was called the Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) CorporationMartin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, Computer a History of the Information Machine — Second Edition, Westview Press, pages 37–39 2004. CTR was incorporated on June 16 1911 in Endicott, New York, U.S.A.. Flint remained a member of the board of CTR until his retirement in 1930.

The companies that merged to form CTR manufactured a wide range of products, including employee time-keeping systems, weighing scales, automatic meat slicers, coffee grinders, and most importantly for the development of the computer, punched card equipment. The product lines were very different, but Flint believed that since they all focused on equipment that made businesses more efficient, there were synergies and cross selling opportunities to be had.  Based in New York City, the new company had 1,300 employees and offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York; Dayton, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Washington, D.C.; and Toronto, Ontario.

Of the companies merged to form CTR, the most technologically significant was the Tabulating Machine Company, founded by Herman Hollerith, and specialized in the development of punched card data processing equipment. Hollerith's series of patents on tabulating machine technology, first applied for in 1884, drew on his work at the U.S. Census Bureau from 1879–82. Hollerith was initially trying to reduce the time and complexity needed to tabulate the 1890 Census. His development of punch cards in 1886 set the industry standard for the next 80 years of tabulating and computing data input. officemuseum.com – early Hollerith history, with good photographs of period equipment

The Tabulating Machine Company originally sold some machines to a railway company but quickly focused on the challenges of the largest statistical endeavor of its day - the 1900 US Census. After winning the government contract, and completing the project with amazing speed, Hollerith was faced with the challenge of sustaining the company in non-Census years He returned to targeting private businesses both in the United States and abroad, attempting to identify industry applications for his automatic punching, tabulating and sorting machines. But creating markets for the new technology was a struggle, and by 1911 Hollerith, now 51 and in failing health, was looking to rest on his laurels. He sold the business to  Flint for $2.3 million (of which Hollerith got $1.2 million), who then created C-T-R. Hollerith remained involved with C-T-R for some years as a consultant, but his involvement waned as time went on.

When the diversified businesses of C-T-R proved difficult to manage, Flint turned for help to the former No. 2 executive at the National Cash Register Company, Thomas J. Watson Sr.. Watson became General Manager of C-T-R in 1914 and President in 1915. I Drawing upon his managerial experience at NCR, Watson quickly implemented a series of effective business tactics: generous sales incentives, a focus on customer service, an insistence on well-groomed, dark-suited salesmen, and an evangelical fervor for instilling company pride and loyalty in every worker. As the sales force grew into a highly professional and knowledgeable arm of the company, Watson focused their