Inventor Name
Sperry, Elmer
Repository
Hagley Museum and Library
PO Box 3630
Wilmington, DE 19807-0630
302-658-2400
https://www.hagley.org/research
Physical Description
1 linear ft.
Summary
Elmer A. Sperry was born on October 12, 1860, in Cortland, N.Y. He attended the local elementary schools and then enrolled in Cornell University. At Cornell he developed an interest in electrical engineering and began working with a group of Syracuse industrialists in order to construct an arc lighting system. By 1882 Sperry was recognized as being one of America’s electrical pioneers. He founded the Sperry Gyroscope Company in 1910. During the 1920s Elmer Sperry turned over the day-to-day operation of the Gyroscope Company to a cadre of professional managers and turned his attention to a technological problem that had first captured his attention as a young man: the compound diesel engine. Correspondence with Charles Kettering of General Motors shows that by 1919 Sperry sought to develop a diesel engine because he had concluded that the world was exhausting its oil supplies and more efficient ways to use energy had to be found. Also, he was convinced that flammable aviation fuel had to be replaced by a safer form of energy. Elmer Sperry’s files on the compound diesel engine and the electric transmission include a number of blueprints and patent diagrams describing his diesel engine and proposed electronic transmission. During the 1920s Sperry collaborated closely with H. C. Snow, an engineer with the Velie Motors Corporation of Moline, Illinois, and the collection includes a complete file of their letters. These records show that in spite of their efforts the diesel project was both a technological and financial failure. Sperry could not develop a working model nor could he raise the capital required to finance research and development in this area. For a while Ford Motor Company, Standard Oil, Baldwin Locomotive Works, and the Illinois Central Railroad expressed interest in Sperry’s work but, when research and development did not proceed as rapidly as expected, they quickly withdrew their support.
