34 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • MAY 2014
MR’S 75TH ANNIVERSARY
Edison at the time of his death (and Edi-
son went on to hold the record for most
patents granted to an American). Sperry
was also a prolifi c entrepreneur, found-
ing eight companies along the way.
Sperry was a man of his age – an era
when the inventor-entrepreneur fi rst
came into play. Some, like Edison and
Henry Ford, created whole new indus-
tries and manufacturing empires with
their inventions. Others, like Sperry,
while certainly interested in profi t and
successful fi nancially, were drawn more
to the science involved and the oppor-
tunity to apply new technologies and
mechanics, according to his biographer,
Prof. Thomas Hughes Park, author of the
highly referenced Elmer Sperry – Inven-
tor and Engineer. He was forced to sell
off his fi rst company, the Sperry Electric
Light, Motor, and Car Brake Co., which
he founded in 1880 at the age of 20, fi ve
years after its founding. The experience
proved a lesson to Sperry. He wasn’t in-
terested in being at the beck and call of
other people’s assignments, or as much
in the business of running a company,
as he was in having the opportunity to
explore new technologies and innovate,
and the chance to tackle problems of his
choosing. All of which led him to launch
one of the country’s fi rst research labo-
ratories in 1888.
What Sperry is known most for is the
gyroscope and its application to many
problems, most notably in his version of
the gyrocompass, but that’s just the tip
of the iceberg of the man’s inventions
and interests.
He was among a handful of inven-
tors toying with electric cars in the late
1800s, winning patents for combus-
tion engines (later adapted to aircraft
engines), automatic transmissions and
electric brakes, street cars and automo-
biles, as contemporaries in England and
Germany produced vehicles for sale,
and electric cab companies buzzed onto
the scene on both sides of the Atlantic.
But the concept was doomed, both by
the unreliability of rechargeable electric
(Photo: Hagley Museum and Library)
The dog with pipe and hat was used
in an advertisement for Sperry Gyro-
scope Company circa 1927.
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