Richard Hollerith papers
Creation: 1962-2004 Creation: Majority of material found within 1965-1980Abstract
Richard Hollerith, Jr. (1926-), spent his professional career working as an industrial designer of office products, computers, printers, office space, and household products. His papers include correspondence, meeting minutes, conference and working group reports, and blueprints reflecting his work as a designer and as an advocate of universal design and barrier-free environments.
Dates
- Creation: 1962-2004
- Creation: Majority of material found within 1965-1980
Creator
- Hollerith, Richard (Person)
Extent
27 Linear Feet
General Physical Description note
27 linear feet, 7 flat file boxes, 19 bags, 4 map case drawers
Biographical Sketch
Richard Hollerith, Jr. (1926-), spent his professional career working as an industrial designer of office products, computers, printers, office space, and household products. Hollerith was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1926 and is the grandson of Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), the inventor of the punched-card system of data tabulation. Herman Hollerith produced the first tabulating machine used by the U.S. Census Bureau to tabulate the 1890 census. Richard earned a B.A. in Naval Science and Geology from Dartmouth College in 1947, and received a degree in industrial design from the Philadelphia Museum School of Art (now the University of the Arts) in 1951. Hollerith began his career drafting turbine blades and working as a part time instructor at the Philadelphia Museum School.
From 1951 through 1954 Hollerith worked as an industrial designer for Raymond Spilman in New York City. In 1954 he became the director of industrial design at the Monroe Calculating Machine Company. At Monroe, Hollerith designed packaging and products, and adapted manufacturing facilities into office space. He left Monroe after its merger with Litton Industries, opting to take a job as a consultant with Henry Dreyfuss Associates, where he was an account manager from 1956 through 1966.
After leaving Dreyfuss Associates, Hollerith became an independent consultant. He owned Industrial Design Consultants (established in 1968) and co-founded I/O Devices Inc., (from 1969 to 1974). Both companies were located in Montville, New Jersey. Hollerith served as president of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) from 1977 through 1978. During his tenure to worked to develop industrial design education and certification programs. Hollerith has been an active proponent of universal design and has served as a board member for organizations that promote barrier free environments.
Scope and Content
The Richard Hollerith papers include correspondence, meeting minutes, conference and working group reports, and blueprints reflecting his work as a designer and as an advocate of universal design and barrier-free environments. Organizations represented include the Industrial Designers Society of America, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, the President's Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and Project Earning Power. Hollerith attended the Hannover-Messe trade fair, an annual international showcase for new industrial products and techologies, as the representative of ID magazine between 1973 and 1982. His papers contain 5 linear feet of official publications, directories, photographs, and trade literature on a wide array of products that he collected there, much of it illustrating what Hollerith considered the finest in European and Japanese design. The papers also have a number of artifacts including a TALC scale mock-up, calculator, and cash register molding. A separate series concerns the final settlement of Herman Hollerith's estate in 1981 to 2001.
Access Restrictions
Items less than 25 years old are not open to researchers.
Language of Materials
English
Additional Description
Provenance
Gift of Richard Hollerith
Separated Material
Richard Hollerith photographs (Accession 2007.209), Audiovisual Collections and Digital Iniatives Department, Hagley Museum and Library.
Much of Hollerith's personal library of design books and periodicals, publications on universal design and aids for people with disabilities, and trade catalogs collected at the Hannover-Messe has been transferred to the Published Collections Department, where it has been cataloged at the item level.
Subjects
Finding Aid & Administrative Information
- Title:
- Richard Hollerith papers
- Author:
- Jason Sylvestre
- Date:
- 2007
- Description rules:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description:
- English
- Script of description:
- Latin
Repository Details
Repository Details
Part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository
