Sperry Corporation
Parent North American Aviation | (1929–1933) | |
Subsidiaries | Aircraft Radio Corporation |
---|
Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and
The company is best known as the developer of the
The company was founded by Elmer Ambrose Sperry.
History
Early history
The company was founded in 1910 by Elmer Ambrose Sperry as the Sperry Gyroscope Company, to manufacture navigation equipment—chiefly his own inventions the marine
In 1918, Lawrence Sperry split from his father to compete over aero-instruments with the Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Company, including the new automatic pilot. After the death of Lawrence on December 13, 1923, the two firms were brought together in 1924. Then in 1929 it was acquired by North American Aviation. The company again became independent in 1933 as the Sperry Corporation.[3] The new corporation was a holding company for a number of smaller entities such as the original Sperry Gyroscope, Ford Instrument Company, Intercontinental Aviation, Inc., and others. The company made advanced aircraft navigation equipment for the market, including the Sperry Gyroscope and the Sperry Radio Direction Finder. It also moved into the hydraulics industry when it acquired Vickers, Inc. in 1937.[4]
Sperry supported the work of a group of Stanford University inventors, led by Russell and Sigurd Varian, who had invented the klystron, and incorporated this technology and related inventions into their products.[5]
The company prospered during
In 1944, Sperry sold the Brooklyn factory at 40 Flatbush Avenue Extension to the Howard clothing manufacturing company, which already had a smaller nearby factory.[7]
Postwar, Sperry expanded its interests in electronics and computing, producing the company's first digital computer, SPEEDAC, in 1953.
During the 1950s, a large part of Sperry Gyroscope moved to
Sperry Rand
In 1955, Sperry acquired
In 1961, Sperry Rand was ranked 34th on the Fortune 500 list of largest companies in the United States.[9]
In 1978, Sperry Rand decided to concentrate on its computing interests, and sold a number of divisions including Remington Rand Systems, Remington Rand Machines, Ford Instrument Company and Sperry Vickers. The company dropped "Rand" from its title and reverted to Sperry Corporation.
At about the same time as the Remington Rand acquisition, Sperry Gyroscope decided to open a facility that would almost exclusively produce its marine instruments. After considerable searching and evaluation, a plant was built in Charlottesville, Virginia, and in 1956, Sperry Piedmont Division began producing marine navigation products. It was later renamed Sperry Marine.
In the 1970s, Sperry Corporation was a traditional conglomerate headquartered in the Sperry Rand Building at 1290 Avenue of Americas in Manhattan, selling typewriters (Sperry Remington); office equipment, electronic digital computers for business and the military (Sperry Univac); construction and farm equipment (Sperry New Holland); avionics, such as gyroscopes, radars, air route traffic control equipment (Sperry Vickers/Sperry Flight Systems); and consumer products such as electric razors (Sperry Remington). In addition, Sperry Systems Management (headquartered in the original Sperry Gyroscope building in Lake Success) performed work on a number of US government defense contracts. Sperry also managed the operation from 1961 to 1975 of the large
Burroughs takeover
On September 16, 1986, after the success of a second hostile takeover bid engineered by Burroughs Corporation CEO and former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Michael Blumenthal, Sperry Corporation merged with Burroughs Corporation.[11] The newly merged company was renamed Unisys Corporation— a portmanteau of "united", "information", and "systems," while also referencing Sperry's well-known previous UNIVAC computer branding.[12] The takeover came about even after Sperry used a "poison pill" in the form of a major share price hike to dissuade the hostile bid, the result of which caused Burroughs to borrow much more funding than was anticipated to complete the bid.
Certain internal divisions of Sperry were sold off after the merger, such as Sperry New Holland (1986, to Ford Motor Company, who in 1991 sold the Ford-New Holland line to Fiat[13]) and Sperry Marine (to Tenneco, in 1987,[14] and is currently part of Northrop Grumman[15]). Also sold—to Honeywell—was Sperry Aerospace Group, while Sperry Defense Products Group was sold to Loral; those two units whose functions were originally at the heart of the venerable Sperry Gyroscope division.[16][failed verification][17][failed verification][18][failed verification] This group is now part of Lockheed Martin.
British Sperry
Sperry in Britain started with a factory in Pimlico, London, in 1913, manufacturing gyroscopic compasses for the Royal Navy. It became the Sperry Gyroscope Co Ltd in 1915. In 1923, Lawrence Sperry was killed in an air crash near Rye, Sussex. The company subsequently expanded to the Golden Mile, Brentford in 1931, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire[19] in 1938, and Bracknell in 1957.[20] By 1963, these sites employed some 3,500 people.[19] The Brentford site closed in 1967, with the expansion of Bracknell. Stonehouse closed around 1969. By 1969, the Sperry Gyroscope division of Sperry Rand Corporation employed around 2,500.[21]
The site of the Bracknell factory and development center (sold to British Aerospace in 1982) is commemorated by a 4.5-meter aluminum sculpture by Philip Bentham, Sperry's New Symbolic Gyroscope (1967).[22]
In 1989, the Bracknell site was downsized and work was moved to the Sperry manufacturing site in
Sperry since 1997
The name Sperry lives on in the company
Products
Aircraft
Model name | First flight | Number built | Type |
---|---|---|---|
Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane | 1917 | 13 | Flying bomb |
Sperry Land and Sea Triplane | 1918 | 2 | Single engine triplane reconnaissance airplane |
Verville-Sperry M-1 Messenger | 1921 | 42 | Single engine biplane communication airplane |
Verville-Sperry R-3 | 1922 | 3 | Single engine monoplane racing airplane |
Missiles and rockets
- Sperry MGM-29 Sergeant
In popular culture
- The 1986 comedy Jumpin' Jack Flash features many Sperry computers in the bank where the protagonist (played by Whoopi Goldberg) works. Jim Belushi plays the role of a Sperry "repairman".[23]
See also
- Hendrik Wade Bode
- Director (military)
- Gun data computer
- Fire-control system
- Kerrison Predictor
- MAPPER
- Rangekeeper
- Sperry Drilling Services
References
Notes
- ^ Brown, Marvin A. (August 2015). "Historic Architecture Eligibility Evaluation Report: Replace Bridge No. 78 on SR 1342 (Morgan Road) over Little Island Creek, Vance County" (PDF). NC.gov. URS Corporation. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
- ^ "Latest Dealings in the Realty Field". The New York Times. June 13, 1915. p. 8 of Realty section. Archived from the original on April 4, 2024. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
- ^ Munitions Industry. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1937. pp. 13746–13747. Retrieved April 16, 2020.
- ^ "Sperry Will Acquire Vickers, Inc., Detroit". Charlotte Observer. AP. May 1, 1937. p. 12. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
- ISBN 978-0-262-12281-8.
- ^ Peck, Merton J.; Scherer, Frederic M. (1962). The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis. Harvard Business School. p. 619.
- New York Times. June 2, 1944. p. 27 (Business Section). Retrieved April 15, 2024.
- ^ "Company History". Unisys. July 9, 2021. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
- ^ "FORTUNE 500: 1961 Archive Full List 1–100". archive.fortune.com. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
- ^ Townsend, Lew (November 29, 1983). "Sperry to Buy Avionics Firm from Cessna". Wichita Eagle-Beacon. p. 5B. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
- ^ Doyle, John M. (August 28, 1987). "Kirk Douglas Suing Sperry". York Daily Record. Associated Press. p. 1C. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
- ^ Sims, Calvin (November 11, 1986). "Burroughs Announces New Company Name". The New York Times. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
- ^ "New Holland History". New Holland Agriculture. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
- ^ "History of Sperry Marine". Sperry Marine. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
- ^ "Our History". Sperry Marine. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
- ^ Price, Kathie (November 15, 1986). "Valley Unit of Sperry Sold for $1.03 Billion". The Arizona Republic. pp. A1, A14. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
- ^ Abbott, Paul Scott (November 15, 1986). "No City Employee Impact Seen in Plant Acquisition". Albuquerque Journal. p. 17. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
- ^ "Loral Wins Bid for Unisys System". Beacon Journal. March 22, 1995. p. B8. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
- ^ a b "Fifty Years of British Sperry". Flight International. March 28, 1963. p. 434.
- ^ "Sperry Gyroscope Company (Bracknell)". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). April 29, 1966.
- ^ "Britain's Aircraft Industry 1969". Flight International. September 4, 1969. p. 378.
- ^ "Sperry's New Symbolic Gyroscope" (PDF). Bracknell Forest Borough Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 27, 2011.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 15, 2017.
Bibliography
- Fahrney, Delmer S., History of Radio-Controlled Aircraft and Guided Missiles
- Pearson, Lee (May 1968). "Developing the Flying Bomb" (PDF). Naval Aviation News. pp. 70–73. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
Further reading
- A History Of Sperry Rand Corporation. Sperry Rand Corporation. December 1967. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
- Memorandum for the Files (PDF), June 4, 1942
- Mindell, David A. (April 1995). "Anti-Aircraft Fire Control and the Development of Integrated Systems at Sperry, 1925-1940" (PDF). IEEE Control Systems Magazine: 108–113. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
- Mindell, David A. (2002). Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing Before Cybernetics. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6895-5.
- Sanders, Gold V. (July 1945). "The Little Top That Aims a Gun". Popular Science. Vol. 147, no. 1. pp. 86–93. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
- Stout, Wesley W. (1945). A War Job "Thought Impossible". Detroit, Michigan: Chrysler Corporation. Archived from the original on August 1, 2020. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
External links
- USStexasbb35.com, Mark 51 Gun director
- dreadnoughtproject.org, Director Firing Handbook index from HMS Dreadnought project
- Gunnery Pocket book maritime.org
- Sperry Gyroscope Company Ltd in Stonehouse Glos UK
- Sperry Corporation, UNIVAC Division Photograph Collection at Hagley Museum and Library
- Sperry Gyroscope Company Division records at Hagley Museum and Library
- Sperry Rand Corporation, Engineering Research Associates (ERA) Division records at Hagley Museum and Library
- Sperry Rand Corporation. Remington Rand Division records: Advertising and Sales Promotion Department at Hagley Museum and Library
- Sperry Rand Corporation, Univac Division records at Hagley Museum and Library
- Sperry-UNIVAC records at Hagley Museum and Library