--- title: UNIVAC and the First Census Bureau Computer: A Brief History description: The U.S. Census Bureau signed a contract for it on Mar. 31, 1951 canonical: https://time.com/4271506/census-bureau-computer-history/ author: Merrill Fabry article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-31T13:00:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:49:43.918Z article:section: History og:title: UNIVAC and the First Census Bureau Computer: A Brief History og:description: The U.S. Census Bureau signed a contract for it on Mar. 31, 1951 og:url: https://time.com/4271506/census-bureau-computer-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltda1ba33962beff3a/69888d1bbc6cfc629c3dc61a/univac.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Remington Rand Univac og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: UNIVAC and the First Census Bureau Computer: A Brief History twitter:description: The U.S. Census Bureau signed a contract for it on Mar. 31, 1951 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltda1ba33962beff3a/69888d1bbc6cfc629c3dc61a/univac.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Story Behind America's First Commercial Computer  by [Merrill Fabry](https://time.com/author/merrill-fabry/)  ## Merrill Fabry Mar 31, 2016 1:00 PM UTC  The Remington Rand Univac was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. It is seen here in Philadelphia in 1951. The Remington Rand Univac was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. It is seen here in Philadelphia in 1951.Underwood Archives / Getty Images  by [Merrill Fabry](https://time.com/author/merrill-fabry/)  ## Merrill Fabry Mar 31, 2016 1:00 PM UTC Exactly 65 years ago, on Mar. 31, 1951, the U.S. Census Bureau [signed](https://www.census.gov/history/www/innovations/technology/univac%5Fi.html) a contract for the first commercial computer in the U.S. and thus entered a new era. When UNIVAC—the Universal Automatic Computer—was dedicated a few months later, the New York _Times_ [called](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9405E3DF1E3FE23BBC4D52DFB066838A649EDE) the machine “an eight-foot-tall mathematical genius” that could in one-sixth of a second “classify an average citizen as to sex marital status, education, residence, age group, birthplace, employment, income and a dozen other classifications.” Until then the Bureau’s data had been handled with help from an electric counting machine [first developed for the 1890 census](https://www.census.gov/history/www/innovations/technology/the%5Fhollerith%5Ftabulator.html). Advances in computer technology during the Second World War made for faster processing speeds—a development of particular interest to the Census Bureau, given the volume of data associated with regularly counting the U.S. population. UNIVAC was designed by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly. During the war they had designed ENIAC, a large-scale general purpose computer, at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1946 the pair left the university to start a commercial venture and secured a contract with the National Bureau of Standards to study what would be required for a computer for the Bureau of the Census. The study, originally expected to take six months, took longer than expected and Eckert and Mauchly didn’t start building the machine until 1948\. Their skill with estimating costs lagged far behind their skill as engineers, and in 1950 they sold their struggling company to Remington Rand, a manufacturer of business machines. Eckert and Mauchly continued their work on UNIVAC, now as a division of Remington Rand. [TIME](http://time.com/vault/issue/1950-11-27/page/69/) explained the promise of the not-yet-released UNIVAC in Nov. 1950: --- > “” --- UNIVAC was a [stored-program](http://www.britannica.com/technology/stored-program-concept) computer that had 5,400 vacuum tubes, could tabulate 4,000 items a minute, used alphanumeric characters, checked its own work and was “just” half the size of ENIAC—a then-tiny 14 ft. long, 7.5 ft. wide and 8 ft. high. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) At the end of March 1951 UNIVAC underwent a series of tests to confirm for the Census Bureau that it really would work as expected. The tests, [described](http://www.ams.org/journals/mcom/1951-05-035/S0025-5718-51-99425-2/S0025-5718-51-99425-2.pdf) in the American Mathematical Society’s Jul. 1951 _Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to_ _Computation_, confirmed the reliability of its commands, its ability to convert information from punch cards to magnetic tape, its skill at reprinting large amounts of information without errors and its overall performance. Having passed these tests, the Census Bureau put it to work, first on some sections of the 1950 census and then on the entire economic census of 1954\. Twelve years later, the UNIVAC was given to the Smithsonian and replaced by newer machines. The _Times_ [headlined](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9405E5D91030EF3BBC4C53DFB6678388679EDE) its retirement thus: “Automation Claims Another Job.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4271506/census-bureau-computer-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4271506/census-bureau-computer-history/"},"headline":"The Story Behind America's First Commercial Computer","datePublished":"2016-03-31T13:00:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:49:43.918Z","description":"The U.S. Census Bureau signed a contract for it on Mar. 31, 1951","url":"https://time.com/4271506/census-bureau-computer-history/","keywords":["Technology","Tech","Census"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltda1ba33962beff3a/69888d1bbc6cfc629c3dc61a/univac.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Merrill Fabry","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/merrill-fabry/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltda1ba33962beff3a/69888d1bbc6cfc629c3dc61a/univac.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Remington Rand Univac","caption":"The Remington Rand Univac","creditText":"Underwood Archives / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/technology/","name":"Technology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4271506/census-bureau-computer-history/","name":"The Story Behind America's First Commercial Computer"}}]}] ```