Elmer Ambrose Sperry

Elmer Ambrose Sperry (born October 12, 1860 in Cortland , New York , † June 16, 1930 in Brooklyn , New York ) was an American inventor and businessman.

Life

In 1880 he founded the Sperry Electric Company in Chicago , which was engaged in the manufacture of generators and arc lamps.

From 1898 to 1901 he manufactured electric automobiles under the brand name Sperry Cleveland .

Elmer Sperry founded the Sperry Corporation in 1910 and, along with Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe, is one of the developers of the first usable gyrocompasses . Its gyrocompass was first used by the US Navy in 1911. In total, he received 360 patents in a wide technical area. In 1925 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences .

His son Lawrence Sperry also dealt with gyrocompass technology.

Thomas Parker Hughes: Elmer Sperry: Inventor and Engineer , Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology, Johns Hopkins University Press, Reprint 1993, ISBN 978-0-8018-4756-1 .
JC Hunsaker: Elmer Ambrose Sperry, 1860–1930 (PDF, 2.3 MB), National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, 1954

personal data
SURNAME	Sperry, Elmer Ambrose
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American inventor and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH	October 12, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cortland , New York
DATE OF DEATH	June 16, 1930
Place of death	Brooklyn , New York