Elmer Ambrose Sperry
| Elmer Ambrose Sperry, Sr. | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
October 12, 1860 Cincinnatus, New York |
| Died | June 16, 1930 (aged 69) Brooklyn, New York |
| Nationality | United States |
| Education | Cornell University |
| Known for | gyroscopic compasses |
| Spouse(s) | Zula Augusta Goodman (1860-1929) (m. 1887-1929) |
| Children | Helen M. Sperry (1889–?) Edward Goodman Sperry (1890-1945) Lawrence Burst Sperry (1892-1923) Elmer Ambrose Sperry, Jr. (1894-1968) |
| Parent(s) | Stephen Decatur Sperry (1825–1889) Mary Borst (1839-1860) |
| Awards |
John Fritz Medal (1927) Elliott Cresson Medal (1929) |
Elmer Ambrose Sperry, Sr. (October 12, 1860 – June 16, 1930) was an American inventor and entrepreneur, most famous as co-inventor, with Herman Anschütz-Kaempfe of the gyrocompass and as founder of the Sperry Gyroscope Company. His compasses and stabilizers were adopted by the United States Navy and used in both world wars. He also worked closely with Japanese companies and the Japanese government and was honored after his death with a biography in his honor.
Sperry was born at Cincinnatus, New York on October 12, 1860 to Stephen Decatur Sperry and Mary Burst. He was of English ancestry. His family had been in what is now the Northeastern United States since the 1600s, and his earliest American ancestor was an English colonist named Richard Sperry. His mother died the next day, from complications from his birth.
He spent three years at the state normal school in Cortland, New York, then a year at Cornell University in 1878 and 1879, where he became interested in dynamos. He moved to Chicago, Illinois, early in 1880 and soon after founded the Sperry Electric Company. He married Zula Augusta Goodman (?-1929) in Chicago, Illinois on June 28, 1887.
He drove the first American-made car in Paris in 1896.
In 1900 Sperry established an electrochemical laboratory at Washington, D.C., where he and his associate, Clifton P. Townshend, developed a process for making pure caustic soda and discovered a process for recovering tin from scrap metal. Sperry experimented with diesel engines and gyroscopic compasses and gyroscopic stabilizers for ships and aircraft. Perry's work eventually resulted in a gyroscope that could replace the magnetic compass. In 1910 he founded the Sperry Gyroscope Company in Brooklyn, New York on the basis of this innovation. His first navigational gyroscope was tested that same year in USS Delaware (BB-28). During both world wars, Sperry's company profited from military demand for gyroscopes. His technology was used in torpedoes, ships, airplanes, and spacecraft. Perry moved into related devices such as bombsights, fire control, radar, and automated take off and landing.
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