Punched-card systems and the early information explosion, 1880-1945
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Punched-card systems and the early information explosion, 1880-1945
(Studies in industry and society)
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009
- : hbk
- : pbk
Available at 7 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
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  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
At a time when Internet use is closely tracked and social networking sites supply data for targeted advertising, Lars Heide presents the first academic study of the invention that fueled today's information revolution: the punched card. Early punched cards helped to process the United States census in 1890. They soon proved useful in calculating invoices and issuing pay slips. As demand for more sophisticated systems and reading machines increased in both the United States and Europe, punched cards served ever-larger data-processing purposes. Insurance companies, public utilities, businesses, and governments all used them to keep detailed records of their customers, competitors, employees, citizens, and enemies. The United States used punched-card registers in the late 1930s to pay roughly 21 million Americans their Social Security pensions, Vichy France used similar technologies in an attempt to mobilize an army against the occupying German forces, and the Germans in 1941 developed several punched-card registers to make the war effort-and surveillance of minorities-more effective.
Heide's analysis of these three major punched-card systems, as well as the impact of the invention on Great Britain, illustrates how different cultures collected personal and financial data and how they adapted to new technologies. This comparative study will interest students and scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including the history of technology, computer science, business history, and management and organizational studies.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Punched Cards and the 1890 United States Census
2. New Users, New Machines
3. U.S. Challengers to Hollerith
4. The Rise of International Business Machines
5. Decline of Punched Cards for European Census Processing
6. Punched Cards for General Statistics in Europe
7. Different Roads to European Punched-Card Bookkeeping
8. Keeping Tabs on Society with Punched Cards
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Financial Information: Tables and Figures
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"