Accession 2054

Manuscripts and Archives Department, Hagley Museum and Library

Finding aid prepared by Jason Sylvestre in March 2007.,

This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2013-05-31T15:37-0400

Finding aid prepared using best local practices and Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Cite items for this collection in the following format:
[Description and dates], Box/folder number, Richard Hollerith papers (Accession 2054), Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE 19807

Administrative Information

Gift of Richard Hollerith

Items less than 25 years old are not open to researchers.

Biographical Sketch

Richard Hollerith, Jr., spent his professional career working as an industrial designer. Hollerith was born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1926 and is the grandson of Herman Hollerith, 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. (1969-1974). 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 1981-2001.

Separated Material

Richard Hollerith photographs (Accession 2007.209), Audiovisual Collections and Digital Initiatives 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 Imprints Dept., where it has been cataloged at the item level.