Born in January of 1859 in Petersburg, Virginia,Robert Pelham held many positions throughout his interesting life. He invented and patented two extremely useful time savings devices for the census office that he worked for but was also dedicated to black issues journalism throughout his life

His parents wanted education for their children so they moved to Detroit, Michagan wth the family in search of better education and atmosphere in which to bring p the children.

Pelham thrived and after school he was hired at the Daily Post where Zachariah Chandler trained him to be a journalist.

Pelham worked there for 20 years whilst also running his own black weekly newspaper named the Detroit Plaindealer.

As his career progressed he took on many important and varied roles such as Deputy Oil Inspector for the state of Michigan, Special Agent for the United States Land Office and Inspector for the Detroit Water Department.

After marrying Gabrielle Lewis in 1893 the couple moved to Washington, D.C.

It was in 1900, at the age of 41, when he started working for the Census Department as a clerk. Pelham received a law degree from Howard University whilst studying in his spare time.

Inputing census data was a laborious task, done one by one, individually and Pelham wanted to find a way round this.

In 1904 he set about making a device. A rolling pin, old cigar boxes and wooden screws were all put together to create his device, a device that automated the process of entering data and ultimately saved the department over $3,000, a huge amount of money back then!

He held his job at the Census Bureau for 30 years and patented two devices whilst there. In 1905, the tabulation device and in 1913, a tallying machine.

When he retired he went back to journalism and became the editor at a Black newspaper called the Washington Tribune. After that he created the Capital News Services. This was dedicated to black issues!

He passed away in June 1943.

Sometimes history is hard to clarify and Robert has also been listed as Benjamin with a different wife, slightly different birth and death dates and some different job positions. Read the other version of this history here and if you have any information about which one is more correct please let us know!