In 1882, at the age of 22, Hollerith moved from the Census Bureau to become an instructor in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he continued to think about the problem posed at the Census Bureauhow to devise a mechanical method to process the rapidly expanding data from the next U.S. census?
Improvements were needed to handle the wider question list and expanding population (over sixty million) anticipated. By June 1, 1890, the population count and distribution would reflect the fourfold effect of industrialization, Civil War survivors, westward migration, and immigration, in addition to the larger population. The manual system was close to breaking point.
Two incidents contributed to Hollerith's solution:
Conversations with Census Bureau colleague, Dr. John Shaw Billings, about count mechanization and the Jacquard loom card system, and
The Jacquard loom uses a series of punched pasteboard cards to mechanically control the warp threads in a loom against the weft threads, automatically creating duplicated patterns in the finished fabric. A railroad conductor punches holes around the edge of each passenger's ticket to signify details of the travel and traveler.
U.S. Patent No. 395,782 on the Art of Compiling Statistics, 1/8/1889 (1.0M)
U.S. Patent No. 395,783 on Apparatus for Compiling Statistics, 1/8/1889 (1.0M)