Michael Hart

Born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1947, Michael S. Hart became one of the key early figures in the history of digital books. He is best known as the founder of Project Gutenberg, a project he began in 1971 with the goal of making public-domain texts freely available in electronic form.

That same year, after gaining access to a university computer system, he typed in the United States Declaration of Independence and shared it electronically. The act is often described as the beginning of the e-book. Hart spent years personally typing and distributing texts, driven by the belief that literature and knowledge should be easy for everyone to access.

Over time, Project Gutenberg grew into a vast library built with the help of volunteers, and Hart came to be recognized as a visionary in digital publishing. He died in 2011 in Urbana, Illinois, but his influence lives on wherever readers can download a classic book in seconds.