Thomas Watson Sr. and Thomas Watson Jr.

Thomas Watson (1874–1956) and his son, Thomas Watson Jr. (1914–1993), were important twentieth-century American businessmen. The elder Watson was president of International Business Machines (hereafter, IBM) from 1914 until 1956, just before his death; he was instrumental in both encouraging IBM's initial growth and making it an international company. Thomas Watson Jr. was the CEO of IBM from 1956 until 1971, during the period of IBM's fastest growth; he turned it from a typewriter company into a computer company and continued his father's work of making IBM larger and more internationally competitive.

Watson Sr. was a salesman for the National Cash Register Company, where he coined the motto, "THINK," which later became famous as IBM's motto. He joined the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in 1914, becoming president on May 1, 1914. In 1924 the company changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation. In September 1949 he was named chairman of IBM, and he made the company so successful that the U.S. government filed a civil antitrust suit against IBM in 1952, when IBM owned more than 90 percent of all tabulating machines in the United States; the suit eventually failed. Watson frequently entertained foreign heads of state, and under his leadership IBM adopted the slogan "World peace through world trade." The International Chamber of Commerce elected Watson its president in 1937.

Thomas Watson Jr. began working at IBM in 1937 as a salesman. After spending time in the army during World War II, he returned to IBM in 1946. He became vice president and a member of the board of directors within a year, then president in 1952 and CEO in 1956. During his tenure as CEO, the number of people employed by IBM grew four-fold and IBM's gross income grew nine-fold. IBM began selling computers only after Watson Jr. took over; he pushed the company into this field despite his father's earlier resistance to the investment needed to enter computing. He decentralized management at IBM, breaking the company into six autonomous divisions and the World Trade Corporation, itself another division of IBM. In 1971 he resigned the position of CEO but stayed on the board of directors until 1984. From 1979 until 1981 he served as U.S. President Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the Soviet Union. IBM is today the sixth-largest company in the United States and one of the dozen largest industrial corporations in the world, due mostly to the efforts of this father and son.

SEE ALSO Information and Communication.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Maney, Kevin. The Maverick and his Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr., and the making of IBM. New York: J. Wiley & Sons, 2003.

Rodgers, William. Think: A Biography of the Watsons and I.B.M. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1970.

INTERNET RESOURCES

"Former CEOs—Thomas J. Watson." IBM Press room. Available from http://www.ibm.com

"Former CEOs—Thomas J. Watson, Jr." IBM Press room. Available from http://www.ibm.com"Time 100: Thomas Watson, Jr." Time 100: Builders & Titans. Available from http://www.time.com/time100/builder.

Jeffrey Wood