ABSTRACT
The first attempt to organize information processing on a large scale using human computers was for the production of mathematical tables, such as logarithmic and trigonometric tables. Trigonometric tables enabled speeding up of calculations of angles and areas in connection with surveying and astronomy. By 1833, Charles Babbage had produced a beautifully engineered prototype Difference Engine that was too small for real table making and lacked a printing unit, but showed beyond any question the feasibility of his concept. Telegraph began as a solution to a communications problem in the early rail system. Before the Civil War the only American data-processing bureaucracy of major importance was the Bureau of the Census in Washington, DC. While the Herman Hollerith's system was the most visible use of mechanical information processing in the United States, it was really only one of many examples of "information technology" that developed in the twenty years following the Civil War.
