Editing Sperry Corporation (section)

===Early history===
[[File:Sperry Horizon.jpg|thumb|''The Sperry Horizon'', Sperry Gyroscope Co. Brooklyn N.Y.]]
The company was incorporated on April 14 1910<ref name="smithsonian">{{cite web |last1=Lemelson Center |title=Sperry Gyroscope Company Division records, 1910-1970 |url=https://invention.si.edu/sperry-gyroscope-company-division-records-1910-1970 |website=Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation |publisher=Smithsonian |access-date=29 May 2024 |language=en |date=23 July 2014}}</ref> by Elmer Ambrose Sperry as the '''Sperry Gyroscope Company''', to manufacture navigation equipment—chiefly his own inventions: the marine [[gyrostabilizer]] and the [[gyrocompass]]—at 40 Flatbush Avenue Extension in [[Downtown Brooklyn]].<ref>{{cite news |date=13 June 1915 |title=Latest Dealings in the Realty Field |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E02E1DB1631E733A05750C1A9609C946496D6CF |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240404000000/https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E02E1DB1631E733A05750C1A9609C946496D6CF |archive-date=2024-04-04 |access-date=6 December 2021 |work=[[The New York Times]] |page=8 of Realty section}} [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-times-lastest-dealings-in-t/144778233/ Alt URL]</ref> During [[World War I]] the company diversified into aircraft components including [[bomb sight]]s and [[fire control system]]s. In their early decades, Sperry Gyroscope and related companies were concentrated on [[Long Island]], New York, especially in [[Nassau County, New York|Nassau County]]. Over the years, it diversified to other locations.

In 1918, [[Lawrence Sperry]] split from his father to compete over aero-instruments with the ''Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Company'', including the new [[autopilot|automatic pilot]]. After the death of Lawrence on December 13, 1923, the two firms were brought together in 1924. Then in January 1929 it was acquired by [[North American Aviation]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Elmer Sperry Dies; Famous Inventor |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1012.html |website=archive.nytimes.com |access-date=14 May 2024}}</ref> who reincorporated it in New York as the ''Sperry Gyroscope Company, Inc''. The company once again became independent in 1933 when it was spun-off as a subsidiary of the newly formed '''Sperry Corporation'''.<ref name="smithsonian" /><ref>{{cite book |title=Munitions Industry |date=1937 |publisher=Government Printing Office |location=Washington |pages=13746–13747 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5mhcE-yQzzsC |access-date=April 16, 2020}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news |title=Sperry Will Acquire Vickers, Inc., Detroit |url=http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/617460888 |access-date=20 December 2022 |work=Charlotte Observer |agency=AP |date=1 May 1937 |page=12}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lécuyer |first1=Christophe |title=Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930–1970 |date=2008 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-12281-8 |page=100 |url=https://archive.org/details/makingsiliconval00chri |url-access=registration}}</ref>

The company prospered during [[World War II]] as military demand skyrocketed, ranking 19th among US corporations in the value of wartime production contracts.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Peck |first1=Merton J. |last2=Scherer |first2=Frederic M. |title=The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis |date=1962 |publisher=Harvard Business School |page=619}}</ref> It specialized in high technology devices such as [[analog computer]]–controlled bomb sights, [[airborne radar]] systems, and automated take-off and landing systems. Sperry also was the creator of the [[Ball Turret]] Gun mounted under the [[Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress]] and the [[Consolidated B-24 Liberator]].

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.<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 2, 1944 |title=HOWARD CLOTHES BUYS IN BROOKLYN; Takes 11-Story Sperry Plant for Expansion -- Old L.I.U. Structure in Deal |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1944/06/02/archives/howard-clothes-buys-in-brooklyn-takes-11story-sperry-plant-for.html |access-date=2024-04-15 |work=[[New York Times]] |page=27 (Business Section)}}</ref>

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 [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]], Arizona and soon became the [[Sperry Flight Systems]] Company. This was to preserve parts of this defense company in the event of a [[nuclear war]]. The Gyroscope division remained headquartered in New York—in its massive [[Lake Success, New York|Lake Success]], Long Island, plant (which also served as the temporary [[United Nations headquarters]] from 1946 to 1952)—into the 1980s.