Henry Lobe Straus (March 10, 1896 – October 25, 1949) was an American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, horse and cattle breeder, sportsman,

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

and

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

pioneer.

Biography

Straus was a 1913 graduate of the

Baltimore City College Baltimore City College, known colloquially as City, City College, and B.C.C., is a college preparatory school with a liberal arts focus and selective admissions criteria located in Baltimore, Maryland. Opened in October 1839, B.C.C. is the thir ...

high school and a graduate electrical engineer of

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

. On April 26, 1927, Henry Straus was at a racetrack in

Havre de Grace, Maryland Havre de Grace (), abbreviated HdG, is a city in Harford County, Maryland, Harford County, Maryland. It is situated at the mouth of the Susquehanna River and the head of Chesapeake Bay. It is named after the port city of Le Havre, France, which ...

. He had bet $10 on a horse showing twelve-to-one odds. The horse won, and Straus expected to collect about $120. However, the final odds, announced 10 minutes after the race, were less than four-to-one, and he collected only $36. Disappointed, Straus decided to do something about it. A machine for calculating

parimutuel Parimutuel betting or pool betting is a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together in a pool; taxes and the "house-take" or "vigorish" are deducted, and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all winnin ...

odds, issuing tickets, and showing payouts on horse races was called a

totalisator A tote board (or totalisator/totalizator) is a numeric or alphanumeric display used to convey information, typically at a race track (to display the odds or payoffs for each horse) or at a telethon (to display the total amount donated to the chari ...

;

George Julius Sir George Alfred Julius (29 April 187328 June 1946) was an English-born Australian inventor and entrepreneur. He was the founder of Julius Poole & Gibson Pty Ltd and Automatic Totalisators Ltd, and invented the world's first automatic totalisa ...

had invented a mechanical version that was first used in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

in 1913. Straus devised an "electromechanical totalisator". Straus received help from

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

's Remote Control Division, who supplied the electric relays and rotary switches to compute odds. After he struggled for several years to market his invention and compete with electric totalisators used in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

Pimlico Race Course Pimlico Race Course is a thoroughbred horse racetrack in Baltimore, Maryland, most famous for hosting the Preakness Stakes. Its name is derived from the 1660s when English settlers named the area where the facility currently stands in honor of Ol ...

installed a partial system in 1930, and

Arlington Park Arlington International Racecourse (formerly Arlington Park, the name was Arlington Park Jockey Club from as soon as 1948 up to 1955) was a horse race track in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois. Horse racing in the Chicago regi ...

racecourse,

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, installed the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

' first complete all-electric totalisator, from Straus's company, in 1933. A rival machine maker approached Straus and proposed a collaboration. The resulting company, the American Totalisator Company of

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, dominated the parimutuel betting market for years. Henry Straus grew wealthy as his all electric totalisator became a near-universal fixture in racetracks in Europe and North America. By the 1946, Straus had begun to experiment with an all-electronic calculating system for the totalisator. Then, in 1948, he learned of the work that

John W. Mauchly John William Mauchly (August 30, 1907 – January 8, 1980) was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first com ...

and

Presper Eckert John Adam Presper Eckert Jr. (April 9, 1919 – June 3, 1995) was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly, he designed the first general-purpose electronic digital computer (ENIAC), presented the first course in co ...

were doing with the EDVAC and

BINAC BINAC (Binary Automatic Computer) was an early electronic computer designed for Northrop Aircraft Company by the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) in 1949. Eckert and Mauchly, though they had started the design of EDVAC at the Unive ...

computers. Straus became convinced that electronic computers had enormous potential for a range of applications, including applications in the race track business. In 1948, Straus convinced the directors of American Totalisator to invest $500,000 to shore up the financially troubled Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation which was then developing

UNIVAC UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...

, the first electronic digital computer designed for commercial use. American Totalisator received 40 percent of the EMCC stock, Straus became chairman of the EMCC board and was active in the business side of operations. Within a year, EMCC was a healthy corporation with contracts for UNIVACs worth $1.2 million. On October 25, 1949, Henry Straus was killed in a plane crash, and soon after the American Totalisator's directors withdrew their support from EMCC. Eckert and Mauchly were forced to look for a buyer, and sold their company to

Remington Rand Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand wa ...

in 1950.

Thoroughbred racing

Henry Straus developed his invention because of his love of

Thoroughbred racing Thoroughbred racing is a sport and industry involving the racing of Thoroughbred horses. It is governed by different national bodies. There are two forms of the sport – flat racing and jump racing, the latter known as National Hunt racing i ...

. With wealth from his business success, he became an owner of racehorses and would acquire the Tropical Park Race Track in

Coral Gables, Florida Coral Gables, officially City of Coral Gables, is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The city is located southwest of Downtown Miami. As of the 2020 U.S. census, it had a population of 49,248. Coral Gables is known globally as home to the ...

which he owned at the time of his death. Among his best horses was

Pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

, a winner of a number of stakes races including the

Pimlico Cup The Pimlico Cup Handicap was an American horse race for Thoroughbreds run between 1919 and 1961 at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. A long-distance race on dirt for Stayer (horse), stayers age three an older, twenty-three of its twenty- ...

and Miami Beach Handicap.

References

External links

* Article in Johns Hopkins Magazine (June 2000

{{DEFAULTSORT:Straus, Henry L. 1896 births 1949 deaths American computer businesspeople American electrical engineers American ranchers Straus, Henry Computer engineers Johns Hopkins University alumni Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in the United States 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American inventors American racehorse owners and breeders American horse racing industry executives