Endicott: Birthplace of IBM
New York
Endicott was built as a company town for the Endicott Johnson Shoe Corporation in the early nineteen hundreds, and at its peak the shoe company employed about twenty thousand workers here, making it the largest footwear manufacturer in the United States. But Endicott carries a second, perhaps more consequential distinction: it is the birthplace of IBM.
In June of nineteen eleven, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was formed with its principal office in Endicott. The company reorganized as International Business Machines in nineteen twenty-four. It was here, in this small Southern Tier city, that IBM developed the punch-card tabulating technology that would form the foundation of its rise to global dominance.
