Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
1. The Cultivation of an Inventor
2. Chicago: The Maturing of an Inventor
3. The Inventor-Entrpreneur
4. The Gyrostabilizer: A Very Powerful Fulcrum in Space
5. Harnessing the Rotation of the Earth: TheGyrocompass
6. Organized Experimentation and Development: The Sperry Gyroscope Company
7. A Beast of Burden Obsessed with motion: Stabilizing the Airplane
8. Brainmill for the Military
9. The Assumption of Leadership: The Naval Consulting Board and the Aerial Torpedo
10. Fulfillment and Legacy
Appendix A: Elmer Sperry Patent Applications Maturing as Patents
Appendix B: Engineering and Scientific Papers of Elmer Sperry
Index

About the Author

Thomas P. Hughes is professor of the history of modern science and technology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His books include Changing Attitudes toward American Technology and Networks of Power:Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930.

Reviews

Superb... In this careful study of a single inventor, Hughes has done more to demonstrate the 'questionable' nature of traditional accounts of invention than all of the theoretical arguments of the past few years combined. Technology and Culture