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Sperry Gyroscope Company
Best known as a pioneering American company in gyroscopic navigation, it helped change how ships and aircraft were guided in the 20th century. Its story links inventive engineering, military technology, and the corporate lineage that eventually led to Unisys.
1 Audiobook
The Sperry Gyro-Compass
by Sperry Gyroscope Company
About the author
Founded in 1910 in Brooklyn by inventor Elmer Ambrose Sperry, the Sperry Gyroscope Company was created to manufacture navigation equipment based on his gyroscope work, especially the gyrocompass and marine stabilizing systems. The company quickly earned a reputation for precision instruments at a time when reliable navigation was becoming more important at sea and in the air.
During World War I and the years that followed, Sperry expanded beyond marine equipment into aircraft instruments, fire-control systems, and other military technologies. In 1933, the company became part of the newly formed Sperry Corporation, and its work continued under that broader organization as electronics and defense systems grew more complex.
The Sperry name remained important in American technology for decades, later appearing in Sperry Rand before the company merged with Burroughs in 1986 to form Unisys. Today, Sperry Gyroscope is remembered less as a single surviving brand than as an early innovator whose instruments helped shape modern navigation and control systems.