Pantograph Card Punch Used at the United States Bureau of the Census
date: label: date made
content: 1920
notes: label: Description
content: This is a punch used for preparing punch cards for the United States Census of Occupations of 1920. It has a triangular open metal base that holds a plate at the front on which a celluloid plate marked like one of the punch cards used in this census, with appropriate holes, rests. Behind this is a support for a card to be punched. Reaching across the instrument from back to front is a long metal rod which has a punch toward the center and a point at the front that fits into the holes in the celluloid plate.
label: Description
content: A mark on the plate reads: OCCUPATION 1920.
label: Description
content: A punch similar to this one was used in the U.S. census of population of 1890, the first carried out with tabulating equipment. Other forms of card punch were introduced in 1910, but proved less satisfactory. The year 1920 was the last in which a pantograph punch was used in the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
label: Description
content: Compare MA.312896.
label: Description
content: Reference:
label: Description
content: Leon E. Truesdell,<I>The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census 1890-1940</I>, Washington: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1965, pp. 140–46, 160.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: web subject
content: Mathematics
label: web subject
content: Census
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 Anne Alvarez
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2011.3121.01
label: nonaccession number
content: 2011.3121
label: catalog number
content: 2011.3121.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: card punch
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 10.5 cm x 30.5 cm x 49.5 cm; 4 1/8 in x 12 in x 19 1/2 in