James L. Powers
James Legrand Powers (1871, Odessa - November, 8, 1926, New York) - American inventor and entrepreneur, the founder of Powers Accounting Machine Company.
Contents
Biography
James Legrand Powers was born in Odessa, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) in 1871, nothing else is known about his early life. He graduated from the Technical School of Odessa and worked in Odessa University mechanical shop. In 1889 he emigrated to the United States and was employed by various engineering concerns including Western Electric.
In 1907 Powers was hired by US Census Bureau as a mechanical expert to modify punched card processing equipment invented two decades earlier by Herman Hollerith, so that improved machines will not infringe Hollerith's patents. Powers had already done some experimental work on office machines and received several patents. Powers managed to circumvent Hollerith's patents and introduced new punched card equipment which was used in 1909 Cuban Census and 1910 US Census.
Powers Accounting Machine Company
Powers founded his company in 1911 as Powers Tabulating Machine Company but later changed its name for Powers Accounting Machine Company. Founded in Newark, New Jersey, the company was moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1914.
Death date
James Powers died on November, 8, 1926 and the obituary appeared in New York Times two days later. According to Encyclopedia of Computer Science article, Powers died around 1935. However, Deutsches Museum's stand states 1915 as the date of Powers's death.
Inventions
Mechanical hole-sensing unit
Printing tabulator
Electric card punch Powers introduced the first electric card punch (e.g. using electric motor to punch the holes) in 1910 and 300 of these machines were used during 1910 US Census. However, this model proved to be error-prone and was dismissed during the Census. Several years after Powers Accounting Machine Company advertised at least three different types of electric card punches:
1. Full-keyboard electric card punch
2. 10-key electric card punch
3. Slide electric card punch
IBM introduced its own motorised card punch in 1929.
Punch card verifier
In 1915 Powers introduced the first card verifier, which was used to check the correctness of punching. IBM introduced its own card verifier only in 1917.
Patents
Sources
• Stan Augarten. Bit by Bit. An Illustrated History of Computers. (Ticknor & Fields, 1984).
• Martin Campbell-Kelly. Powers, James in Encyclopedia of Computer Science (4th edition) edited by Edwin D. Reilly, Anthony Ralston, David Hemmendinger. (John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2003)
• Martin Campbell-Kelly. Chapter Four: Punched-Card Machinery in Computing Before Computers edited by William Aspray. (Iowa State University Press, 1990)
