This is a biography of a major American inventor, who obtained more than 350 patents during his lifetime. Elmer Sperry contributed greatly to the technological changes occurring between 1880 and 1930. He was best known for the Sperry gyrocompass and automatic pilot, and his inventions included arc-light systems, mining machinery, electric automobiles and streetcars, and electrochemical processes. Characteristic of his various inventions were feedback controls which have made automation a fact of life. The book won the Dexter Prize of the Society for the History of Technology.

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


Awards
Winner of Dexter Prize for an Outstanding Book on the History of Technology 1972 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9780801847561
Author Thomas Parker Hughes
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 862g