<P> The herein - described method of compiling statistics, which consists in recording separate statistical items pertaining to the individual by holes or combinations of holes punched in sheets of electrically non-conducting material, and bearing a specific relation to each other and to a standard, and then counting or tallying such statistical items separately or in combination by means of mechanical counters operated by electro - magnets the circuits through which are controlled by the perforated sheets, substantially as and for the purpose set forth . </P> <P> Hollerith had left teaching and begun working for the United States Census Bureau in the year he filed his first patent application . Titled "Art of Compiling Statistics", it was filed on September 23, 1884; U.S. Patent 395,782 was granted on January 8, 1889 . </P> <P> Hollerith initially did business under his own name, as The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System, specializing in punched card data processing equipment . He provided tabulators and other machines under contract for the Census Office, which used them for the 1890 census . The net effect of the many changes from the 1880 census: the larger population, the data items to be collected, the Census Bureau headcount, the scheduled publications, and the use of Hollerith's electromechanical tabulators, was to reduce the time required to process the census from eight years for the 1880 census to six years for the 1890 census . </P> <P> In 1896 Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company (in 1905 renamed The Tabulating Machine Company). Many major census bureaus around the world leased his equipment and purchased his cards, as did major insurance companies . Hollerith's machines were used for censuses in England, Italy, Germany, Russia, Austria, Canada, France, Norway, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, and again in the 1900 census . </P>

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