Framed Diploma of Herman Hollerith, Doctor of Philosophy, Columbia University
date: label: date made
content: 1890
name: label: maker
content: Columbia University
notes: label: Description
content: The inventor and businessman Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) grew up in New York, the son of German immigrants. He attended the College of the City of New York and then Columbia University, receiving an “engineer of mines” degree from the latter institution in 1879, at age nineteen. Hollerith worked as a special agent for the U.S. Census of 1880, taught briefly in the mechanical engineering program at MIT, and returned to Washington, DC as an assistant patent examiner. From 1884, he devoted himself to invention, particularly the invention of machines for tabulating data. This led to compilation of mortality statistics from the city of Baltimore and then reduction of data from the U.S. Census of 1890. In the spring of 1890, Hollerith requested that Columbia University grant him a PhD. The trustees agreed and, with payment of a $5 matriculation fee and a $35 tuition fee for courses not actually taken, Hollerith received this diploma that June. His tabulating machine proved most successful, leading to the establishment of the Computing Tabulating Machine Company of Washington, D.C., a forerunner of IBM.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: Geoffrey D. Austrian, <I>Herman Hollerith: Forgotten Giant of Information Processing</I>, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Tabulating Equipment
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Virginia Hollerith and Lucia Hollerith
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.317982.08
label: accession number
content: 317982
label: catalog number
content: 317982.08
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sheet
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall, framed: 20 1/2 in x 24 1/2 in; 52.07 cm x 62.23 cm