Gearing Up for the Count

In 1890, the Census Bureau began using tabulating machines to count millions of Americans after it took nearly a decade to complete the constitutionally required counting of U.S. residents 10 years earlier. Former Census employee Herman Hollerith invented the punch-card machines and went on to found what became IBM. In 2010, Pearson Government Solutions of Arlington, Va., will scan paper census forms and process surveys of Americans using the Decennial Response Integration System. According to the company, the contract for the system, which it won as a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin, is worth more than $100 million. In 2000, Pearson operated one of three data centers for the census, processing about 46 million census forms in 120 days.--Daniel Pulliam