Michael Hart, 1947–2011

last updated 8 January 2015

Michael Hart was sitting in the University of Illinois computation center on July 4, 1971, struggling to find a project worthy of its massive mainframe computer. Fumbling through his backpack, the student found a copy of the Declaration of Independence he’d been handed as a grocery store promotion. “If I put this up online,” he later recalled thinking, “it will last a long time.” Hart typed the text into the computer, making it accessible to anyone on the pre-Internet network—about 100 people. That first text grew into the massive online library known as Project Gutenberg, which today hosts 36,000 free books by authors from Jane Austen to Émile Zola.

Hart understood the life-changing power of books. In the 1950s, his accountant father and store manager mother retrained to become college teachers, of Shakespeare and mathematics, respectively, said The New York Times. Hart graduated from the University of Illinois, then dedicated himself to Project Gutenberg. He typed out e-books alone for almost two decades, finishing one a month. By 2001, thanks to the Web’s growth and a boom in volunteers, Project Gutenberg was publishing over 100 e-books a month.

Hart, a self-described “cyber-hippie,” believed free books would “help break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy.” Not everyone agreed. “He was often disparaged by academics,” who complained of text errors, said the Los Angeles Times. Hart shrugged off their criticisms, saying he just wanted to “provide as many e-books in as many formats as possible for the entire world to read in as many languages as possible.”