Inventor Name
Sperry, Elmer Ambrose
Repository
Hagley Museum & Library
Manuscripts & Archives Department
P.O. 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. In 1901 Sperry read a journal article which described the electrolytic process used by a young Washington patent examiner, Clinton P. Townsend. The Townsend process liberated sodium hydroxide and hydrogen from a brine solution. Upon learning about it, Sperry immediately realized this reaction could potentially supply a new form of energy for industrial chemistry. He contracted Townsend and offered to finance his experimental work in exchange for rights to his patents. Together, Sperry and Townsend began working on the development of an electrolytic cell and made plans to set up a production facility to manufacture caustic soda and white lead. For a while this operation was promising, and Sperry moved to Niagara Falls to open a production plant. In 1903 and 1904 a number of other companies expressed keen interest in Sperry's and Townsend's experimental work. The Solvay Process Company, Anaconda, and Grasselli Chemical offered to buy Sperry's Niagara plant, but after a number of lengthy patent infringement suits, Hooker's Development and Funding Company purchased the operation. After the sale to Hooker, Sperry began working on a detinning process that he was forced to sell to the American Can Company when he found himself the defendant in a series of patent infringement suits. After this experience, Sperry began to turn his attention to gyroscopic technology, developing the ship stabilizer and gyrocompass in the years before the First World War. In 1910 he founded the Sperry Gyroscope Company. This series summarizes Sperry's experimental work and entrepreneurial interests in electrochemistry. Correspondence with Clinton P. Townsend describes the work of the Townsend laboratory and documents the business relationship that Sperry and Townsend established. The letters and technical reports trace Townsend's efforts to develop the caustic soda and white lead processes. Correspondence with E. H. Hooker of the Hooker Electrochemical Company describes the business negotiations between Sperry and Hooker, and Hooker's decision to help finance the development of the Townsend-Sperry process. The records include Sperry's and Townsend's correspondence with Leo Baekeland and Ernest LeMaire, who were assigned to supervise the construction and operation of the Niagara white lead plant for the Hooker Company. The records document Sperry's and Townsend's attempts to develop an economical detinning process. Correspondence with William F. Dutton of the American Can Company describes operations of the detinning laboratory, as well as the business relationship that developed between Sperry and Dutton. The papers also describe the patent suit with Th. Goldschmidt & Company that eventually forced Sperry and Dutton to abandon their project.