The iron and steel instrument is designed for the mechanical, single-column sorting of 24-column cards. This horizontal card sorter is one result of that effort. Concerned by the high rental charges, the Bureau decided to develop tabulating equipment in its own shop. At first, the Bureau of the Census rented machines on the design of Herman Hollerith. census of population was punched onto cards and compiled using tabulating machines. Bureau of the Census Tabulating System Description From 1890 through 1950, information collected in the decennial U.S. Census Bureau ID Number MA.316863 accession number 229657 catalog number 316863 Data Source National Museum of American History Location Currently not on view date made 1920 maker U. Truesdell, The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census 1890вЂ“1940, Washington: U.S. When a brush passes through a hole in a card, it encounters a contact and in turn activates the relays and counters. The reading head contains individual wire brushes and contacts for each hole to be read. It has 60 four-position electromagnetic friction-driven counters with printing wheels and 50 electromagnetic relays, each with three contacts.

Concerned by the high rental charges, it decided to develop tabulating equipment in its own shop.This tabulating machine was first used in the 1920 Census and then, after modification, in the 1930 Census. At first the Bureau of the Census rented machines on the design of Herman Hollerith. Bureau of the Census Tabulating Machine Description From 1890 through 1950, information collected in the decennial United States census of population was punched onto cards and compiled using tabulating machines. These were used not only in business and government but by organizations such as labor unions. Remington Rand acquired Powers when it formed in 1927, and made punched card accounting machines into the 1950s. The company went bankrupt in 1920, but development of mechanical card punch equipment along the lines Powers envisioned continued. Although no machines of the Powers Accounting Machine Company survive in the Smithsonian collections, parts from them are represented.

James Powers, one of the first inventors hired by North, left to establish his own business in 1911. Tabulating equipment from the later period survives at NMAH. These machines were used in the census of population in 1910, 1920, and 1930. North established a machine shop staffed by engineers and mechanics to develop alternate systems. North, the Director of the Bureau from 1903, believed that renting tabulating machines from HollerithвЂ™s Tabulating Machine Company was too expensive. government agency, the Bureau of the Census. In 1902 the Census Office became a permanent U.S. The Bureau of the Census to Remington Rand

Remington rand 1911a1 type 3 marking