The Influence of Dr. Billings

Portrait of Dr. Billings

During his time at the Bureau, the most significant encounter of his life would take place because of a women, named Kate Sherman Billings. Through Ms. Billings, who Hollerith courted for a time, Hollerith gained close contact with Ms. Billings' father Dr. John Shaw Billings, head of the division of Vital Statistics for the Census Bureau. Dr. Billings was a man of many talents. He was a member of the National Board of Health; designed seven medical institutions; and chaired the Board of the Carnegie Institution for ten years. But even with these accomplishments, Billings is best known for organizing libraries. Billings supervised the evolution of National Library of Medicine from the collection of the Office of the Surgeon; oversaw the publication of Index Medicus, the predecessor to what is currently the most commonly used computer index of medical abstracts, MEDLINE; and designed the New York Public Library.3 Despite his many responsibilities Billings was known to take interest in promising young men. Billings selected Dr. William Osler for the staff of Johns Hopkins, a hospital that Billings helped planned.2

Billings recognized great potential in Hollerith. Dr. Billings provided the inspiration for Henry Hollerith's great invention. While there is no definitive account of the meetings between Billings and Hollerith, it is clear that Hollerith based his machine heavily on a model that Billings advocated. Dr. Walter Willcox, a professor at Cornell and member of the Census Bureau, recalls Billings alluding to the Jacquard Loom as a model for a tabulating system.² Although Billings credited Hollerith fully with the design, Hollerith acknowledged Billings' importance in the creation of his counting machine. Hollerith stated:

He said to me there ought to be a machine for doing the purely mechanical work of tabulating population and similar statistics . . . his idea was something like a type of distributing machine. He thought of using cards with the description of the individual shown by notches punched in the edge . . .²

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Introduction | Hollerith finds employment with the Census Bureau | The Influence of Dr. Billings | The Jacquard Loom | Hollerith's First Design | Advantages of Hollerith's Device | Hollerith Cards | Modifactions to Hollerith's Device | Field Testing | The Problem of the Census | The Evolution of Hollerith's System | The TwelfthCensus | Hollerith's Success | Resources