Louis Leitz, a mechanic in Stuttgart, developed the mechanism of the lever-arch binder in the 1890s. The sources differ on the year. The Deutsche Biographie gives 1893, and the Württemberg State Museum gives 1896. In 1911 the binder got the finger hole in its spine. The brand name became the general German word for a lever-arch file, the Leitz-Ordner. The Deutsche Biographie says that Leitz revolutionized the management of written records.