Elmer Ambrose Sperry: Father of Modern Navigation Technology

In this installment of ‘Profiles in History,’ we meet a brilliant entrepreneur whose naval and aeonautical contributions altered the science of navigation.

Elmer Ambrose Sperry is often referred to as the Father of Modern Navigation Technology. Public Domain

The compass has a history stretching back more than 2,000 years. This tool, capable of pinpointing due north by magnetism, altered human activity forever, enabling explorers and navigators to maintain their courses to whatever destination they endeavored to reach. Navigators the world over utilized this marvel throughout the millennia, but when shipbuilders switched from wood to iron, it substantially interfered with the compass’s accuracy. The compass needed to be revolutionized, and a young American genius decided to take on the task.

Elmber Ambrose Sperry (1860–1930) was born in Cortland in Upstate New York. His father, Stephen, who was away working during the time of his birth, was given the news, which should have been a welcome announcement. The news, however, was tragic; his wife, Mary, had died from complications after giving birth. Sperry grew up without a mother, and with a father, who was often away working. He was sent to live on a farm with his grandparents and an aunt.

Sperry developed into a smart and inquisitive teenager who was completely infatuated with the new inventions of the day. Growing up during the height of America’s Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age, Sperry witnessed and contributed to many of the nation’s grand developments. He attended the local State Normal and Training School, and then attended the nearby Cornell University in 1878 and 1879.

First Company

At Cornell, he learned about dynamo electricity, and, by the time he had a grasp on the technology, which apparently did not take long, he left and moved to Chicago to found his first business in 1880. The 20-year-old founded Sperry Electric Company, the first of his eight companies. Sperry Electric specialized in electric dynamos and arc lighting systems.

During his time in Chicago, he founded several companies, including the Sperry Electric Mining Machine Company, the Sperry Electric Railway Company (of Cleveland, Ohio), and the Chicago Fuse Wire Company. His work greatly improved the industries of mining machinery, electric railways, and the newest advancement in transportation technology, the electric automobile.

By the start of the 20th century, Sperry had founded an electrochemical business in Washington. This business focused on making pure caustic soda and processing scrap metal to recover tin. But Sperry’s 20th-century contributions had less to do with scrap metal, and much more to do with how to counter the metal through his improvements with gyroscopes. Interestingly, Washington would prove to be the home of his largest buyer: the federal government.

Gyrocompass and Stabilizer

Elmer Sperry's stabilizing gyroscope installed in the USS Henderson. Public Domain

During the early 1900s, Sperry experimented with gyroscopic compasses and stabilizers. As ships were now no longer being built of wood, but of metal, the traditional compass was practically of no use. His gyroscope compass and stabilizer ensured the compass could adjust with the rolls of ships. The stabilizer would initiate a principle called precession before a ship even began to roll.

“If I impress a force on one end of the axis of a gyroscope it will resist this impressed force but will turn in a direction at right angles to the force impressed,” Sperry once explained. “This motion at right angles to the impressed forces is called ‘precession.’ It will be observed that the gyroscope does not resist any forces impressed by linear motion; nothing but angular motion causes precession, and nothing but the forces impressed by angular motion are resisted. This angular motion may be about a point within the gyro or a point at any distance from the gyro, but must be angular motion.”

He received his patent for the gyrocompass in 1908 and launched his Sperry Gyroscope Company two years later in Brooklyn. The United States Navy was obviously impressed with Sperry’s creation, and, in 1911, the Navy placed the gyrocompass aboard the battleship USS Delaware.

The creation of his new company was rather timely, as the demand for his invention skyrocketed with the onset of World War I. Sperry’s gyrocompass was placed aboard all U.S. Navy vessels by the end of the war. It was so successful that the Navy continued using it throughout World War II.

From Ships to Aircrafts

The gyrocompass and stabilizer was also placed in aircrafts. This aeronautic version was actually introduced in Paris during a 1914 flight competition. The “hands-off-the-controls” demonstration led to him receiving first prize by the Aero Club of France and the Collier Trophy, awarded “for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year.” It was a trophy he was awarded twice. The device would also be placed on spacecraft and torpedoes (the latter in 1917 becoming the first successful guided missile).

The gyrocompass and stabilizer weren’t the only contributions Sperry made to the American war effort. He also devised a high-intensity anti-aircraft searchlight, which was used by both the Navy and the Army. Sperry also created something called the “Metal Mike,” which was an autopilot steering system. His work in aeronautics continued by developing new technologies for bombsights, radar, take-off and landing systems, radio beacons, artificial horizons, and even fire control systems.

Elmer Ambrose Sperry demonstrating the operation of a searchlight. Public Domain

Additionally, Sperry, known early for his work with rail systems, invented a device that could identify cracks and fissures in rails. The American Railway Association called it “one of the most important safety moves in years.”

A Legacy of Brilliance

By the time of his quite unexpected death in 1930 at the age of 69, he had approximately 400 patents to his name and had founded eight successful businesses. His Sperry Corporation would eventually merge with another tech company to become the tech giant Unisys. Along with the aforementioned awards, he won two Franklin Institute medals (1914 and 1929); the Holley Medal (1927); the John Fritz Medal (1927); the Albert Gary Medal (1929); decorations from the czar of Russia; the Order of the Rising Sun and the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the emperor of Japan; and the grand prize at the 1915 Panama Exposition.

Despite never completing college, he was awarded honorary degrees from the Stevens Institute, Lehigh University, and Northwestern University.

When Secretary of the Navy Charles Adams III heard of his passing, he stated, “The United States naval service ashore and afloat will learn with deep regret of the loss of one from whom we have received much. As a member of the naval consulting board since 1915, Mr. Sperry has rendered invaluable service as chairman of the committees on mines and torpedoes and aids to navigation and as a committee member on aeronautics, internal combustion engines, and special problems. His numerous inventions, including his gyrocompass, plane stabilizer, high intensity searchlight and his many refinements on apparatus for accurately controlling the fire of our guns, have assisted materially in placing the navy in first-class fighting trim. It is safe to say that no one American has contributed so much to our naval technical progress.”

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