Who Am I? (Number 7)

     I was born in Cincinnatus, N.Y., October 12, 1860. My mother died after my birth, and I was raised in Cortland by my aunt, Mrs. Helen Willett. My father worked for the Cortland Wagon Company.
     When I was a boy I built a nutmeg grater for my aunt, and I built, for amusement, waterwheels, windmills and a tricycle to ride on railroad tracks.
     I was graduated from the State Normal School at Cortland in 1878, and then transferred to Cornell University for one year to study the electric dynamo. I also studied generators and electric arc lights. I built the first generator and arc light for the Cortland Wagon Company and illuminated the Christmas Festival at Cortland in 1879.
     In 1880, I moved to Chicago. I founded an electric arc light manufacturing business. In 1883, I erected an electric beacon at a height of 303 feet, on top of the Chicago Board of Trade building. The electric arc light had 40,000 candle power.
     As the years progressed, I invented and sold electric arc street lighting, electric machinery for mining, electric safety devices for trolley cars, an electric storage battery, an electric automobile with 4-wheel brakes, a lighting system for motion picture projection, a high power search light, an electrochemical detinning process for the American Can Company, and an airplane stabilizer.
     I drove the first American automobile through the streets of Paris in 1896.
     I was a Republican, a Baptist, active member in the YMCA, and a friend and supporter of President Herbert Hoover. I filed over 400 patents, twice as many as Thomas Edison.
     In 1900, I moved to Washington, D.C. Here I built a laboratory to formulate electrochemical processes for the manufacture of caustic soda from salt, and here I also developed the aforementioned detinning process. 
     Before I moved to Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1904, I sold my electric arc lighting patents to the General Edison Company at Schenectady, N.Y. Later on, this company reorganized and was incorporated as the General Electric Company.
     In Brooklyn, I established another company which bore my name and the name of my major invention. Herman Anschutz-Kaempfe of Germany also shares credit for the invention of the device.
     In my lifetime, I established eight profitable businesses.
     On June 16, 1930, after complications of gall bladder disease, I passed away in Brooklyn, N.Y. I was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
     My name is Elmer Ambrose Sperry, and I invented the Sperry Gyroscope and Gyrocompass.


Editor's note: Read J. C. Hunsaker's short biography of Elmer A. Sperry at:  http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/esperry.pdf