Watson, Thomas J., Sr | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

American Business Executive
1874–1956

Thomas John Watson, born on February 17, 1874, was neither an inventor nor a technician, but his contributions to computer science were substantial nonetheless. During Watson's forty-two years of leadership at IBM Corporation, his marketing and management skills and his emphasis on research and development helped create the Computer Age. He died on June 19, 1956.

The fifth child of an immigrant Scots-Irishman, Watson was born in a four-room cabin in Painted Post, New York. He showed no affinity for the family farm and lumber business and chose to study business and accounting instead. After a year at the Miller School of Commerce in Elmira, NewYork, he accepted a bookkeeping job at the then relatively high salary of $6 a week. He was seventeen years old.

The job was shortlived, however, as Watson succumbed to the lure of the open road and the life of a traveling salesman, peddling pianos, organs, and sewing machines off the back of a wagon. He soon joined forces with a more established salesman named C. B. Barron, this time selling stock in the Northern New York State Building and Loan Association.

During this period, Watson began honing the selling skills that would someday earn him the nickname of the world's greatest salesman. But first there were a few bumps on the road: Barron absconded with the money they had earned, and Watson was fired. However, fortune smiled on Watson in October 1895, when he took a sales job with the National Cash Register Company (NCR) and was soon outperforming everyone in NCR's Buffalo, New York, office.

By 1912, after a series of rapid promotions, Watson had risen to second-in-command at NCR's corporate headquarters in Dayton, Ohio. At the age of thirty-eight, this tall, strikingly handsome man was one of the town's most eligible bachelors—but not for long. He met Jeannett Kittredge, daughter of a prominent businessman, at a country club dinner, and a year later they were married. The couple eventually had four children: Thomas, Jr.; Jane; Helen; and Arthur.

During the NCR years, to raise the morale of a dispirited sales force, Watson adopted his famous motto "THINK" and placed framed placards with that single word throughout the company's offices. Years later, he would use that same slogan at IBM, a company he was soon to join.

Watson's departure from NCR was preceded by two serious impediments to his career path. The first of these was an accusation by the company's main competitor, American Cash Register Company, that Watson and twenty-nine other executives had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act ﾀ by engaging in unfair business practices, some designed to eliminate the second-hand trade in business machines. Although Watson was sentenced to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine, the verdict was quickly appealed and eventually set aside. Nonetheless, the widely publicized trial did little for his standing at NCR. In addition, there was a public disagreement with NCR President John H. Patterson, and shortly thereafter Watson was dismissed.

Watson was recruited by Charles R. Flint, the founder of what was to become IBM, and on May 1, 1914, he became general manager of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), a small conglomerate in need of a major turnaround. Watson was intrigued by the product line, particularly the tabulating machine invented by Herman Hollerith (1860–1929) to help tally census results. Believing that automated accounting and record keeping had great commercial potential, Watson focused on the tabulating-machine division. Later that year, as CTR president, he borrowed the funding for research and development and began a transformation of the company. In 1924, at the age of fifty, he became chief executive officer and changed CTR's name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), reflecting his vision of the future.

To realize that vision, Watson motivated his employees through slogans and songs, a company newspaper and school, a country club that anyemployee could join for a dollar a year, and the promise of lifetime employment. One of his slogans was "World peace through world trade." A master of sales promotion, he understood the needs of the customer and met those needs through continuous funding of engineering and research. It was primarily Watson's support that ensured the development of Howard Aiken's Mark I calculator—the first digital computer made in the United States and IBM's first step into the Computer Age. Advancements continued and in 1952 IBM introduced its first production computer, the 701, and the company was firmly established in the computer business.

Watson retired as president of the firm in 1949 to become chairman of the board, and on May 8, 1956, he passed on executive power to his eldest son, Thomas Watson Jr. Six weeks later, he died of a heart attack at the age of eighty-two.

Karen E. Esch

Herman Hollerith; Ibm Corporation; Mainframes.

Belden, Thomas, and Marva Belden. The Lengthening Shadow: The Life of Thomas J. Watson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1962.

Fishman, Katharine Davis. The Computer Establishment. New York: Harper and Row, 1981.

Levinson, Harry, and Stuart Rosenthal. CEO: Corporate Leadership in Action. New York: Basic Books, 1984.

Rodgers, William. THINK: A Biography of the Watsons and IBM. New York: Stein and Day, 1969.

Slater, Robert. "Thomas J. Watson, Sr.: Founder of IBM." In Portraits in Silicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987.

Watson, Thomas J., Jr., and Peter Petre. Father, Son and Co. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.

ﾀ Named after American Senator John Sherman, the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) was intended to reduce business practices that limited economic competition.

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