Engineering Research Associates (ERA) - Remington Rand - Sperry Rand Records,

1945-1988

CBI 176

Collection Size: 14.2 cubic feet (40 boxes)

Creator: Charles Babbage Institute

Prepared By: Josh Knatterud-Hubinger, Amanda Schwarze and Carrie Seib, 2004-2005.

Acquisition: The records were given to the Charles Babbage Institute by a variety of individuals in numerous accessions.

Access: Access to the collection is unrestricted.

Copyright: The Charles Babbage Institute holds the copyright to all materials in the collection, except for items covered by a prior copyright (such as published materials). Researchers may quote from the collection under the fair use provisions of the copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Preferred Citation: ERA-RR-SR Records (CBI 176), Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Historical Note

Engineering Research Associates (ERA) was founded in 1946 in an effort to continue the work of a classified war-time Navy cryptology unit called Communications Supplementary Activity -Washington (CSAW). A technological group, headed by former CSAW supervisors Howard T. Engstrom and William C. Norris, and former head of the Naval Computing Machine Laboratory Ralph I. Meader, joined with investment banker John Parker to establish the company. Parker was the former head of Northwestern Aeronautical Corporation (NAC), a St. Paul, Minnesota firm that made gliders during World War II. ERA established a small office in Arlington, Virginia, but the majority of ERA's workforce was located in the former NAC facility in St. Paul.

ERA became a division of Remington Rand in 1952. In 1955, Remington Rand and the Sperry Corporation merged to become the Sperry Rand Corporation and ERA became part of the company's Univac Division.

Bibliography

"Engineering Research Associates: The wellspring of Minnesota's computer industry" (St. Paul: Sperry Communications Dept., 1986).

Tomash, Erwin and Arnold E. Cohen. "The Birth of ERA: Engineering Research Associates Inc. 1946-1955." In Annals of the History of Computing 1:2 (October 1979).

Biographical Note

Warren P. Burrell

Warren P. Burrell graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BEE in 1948 and joined Engineering Research Associates as an assistant engineer working in computer development that same year. Burrell was involved in such projects as the ERA 1101, ERA 1103, the UNIVAC File Computer, NIKE-X, and XU-71.

John Lindsay Hill

John Lindsay Hill graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a BSEE in 1930. He worked as project engineer for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing before joining Engineering Research Associates as an electrical engineer in 1946. At ERA, Hill supervised development of the ERA 1101 and several other projects including a message storage and relay system for stored flight plans using magnetic drums for the Civil Aeronautics Administration. In 1956, Hill was placed in charge of the UNIVAC project. Later he worked for Ramsey Engineering.

Jay A. Kershaw

Jay A. Kershaw graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BEE in 1950. He joined ERA in 1951 as an electrical engineer in computer development. Kershaw worked on development of magnetic recording techniques and materials, and the Logistics Computer. He became peripherals manager for the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) project in the early 1960s. Kershaw left Sperry Univac to work in management for Control Data Corporation and later for Control Data's subsidiary, Control Data Worldtech.

Scope and Content Note

The Engineering Research Associates - Remington Rand - Sperry Rand Records document research, development and production activities at company facilities in St. Paul, Minnesota. Researchers should note that these materials do not constitute the official corporate records of any of the three companies. Materials in this collection were gathered from a variety of sources, including company employees such as engineers Warren P. Burrell, John Lindsay Hill, and Jay A. Kershaw.

The bulk of the collection consists of technical information on company projects, such as the Atlas I (commercially known as ERA 1101 and UNIVAC 1101), the Logistics Computer, and the UNIVAC LARC, as well as other research and products including the magnetic drum memory. Also included are some administrative materials related to the St. Paul location, engineers' files, and materials exhibited at the ERA 40th anniversary event in 1986.

 Arrangement of the Collection

Box and Folder List

Corporate Administration, 1946-1988

Materials consist of administrative records related to the St. Paul location, although there are a few company-wide corporate histories and employee directories. Staff biographies, trip reports, and staff talks and writings are included. Materials originate from all three companies, but not all are specifically identified with (or filed by) their source company.

Technical Reports and Memoranda, 1947-1972

Technical reports were used as a formal means of communicating technical information internally and externally.  Technical memoranda were less formal and generally used only within company. This series includes both, as well as other technical documents such as blueprints, manuals, and project proposals.

The technical documents have been loosely organized into three groups: those filed by project or system name, those filed chronologically, and military projects. Users searching for technical information on a specific project, system, or component should examine all three groups of documents, as there is some overlap in coverage. For example, materials on the magnetic drum memory can be found in all three groups.

Users should search under all possible project/machine names too, as projects evolved and changed names over time. For example, the Atlas I, built for the Navy, was modified and marketed commercially as the ERA 1101. It eventually became the UNIVAC 1101.

Additional technical information can be found in the engineer's files.

Filed by Project or System Name

Filed Chronologically

U.S. Military Projects, 1950-1962

 

Warren P. Burrell Records, 1945-1970

Warren P. Burrell's files document his activities and involvement in many projects, including the ERA 1101, ERA 1103, the UNIVAC File Computer, and NIKE-X. The majority of the materials consist of technical reports, blueprints, notes, and correspondence. Additional technical information can be found in the technical reports and memoranda.

John Lindsay Hill Records, 1947-1981

John Lindsay Hill's files primarily document his work at ERA with magnetic memory components of computers, especially magnetic drums. Also documented are ERA projects for 3M, a thermal printer, and a John Plain & Company product called the Speed Tally, or Distributon, completed after ERA became a division of Remington Rand. Materials include reports, articles, correspondence, memoranda, presentations, engineering diagrams, photographs, and seminar notes and outlines. Additional technical information can be found in the technical reports and memoranda.

Jay A. Kershaw Records, 1955-1965

Jay A. Kershaw's files include day files and memoranda related to his work as peripherals manager on the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) at Sperry Univac as well as documentation of his work on other projects at Sperry Univac in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Additional technical information can be found in the technical reports and memoranda.

ERA 40th Anniversary Event exhibit materials

Materials include a guestbook and documents exhibited at "Computing in the 21st Century: A Symposium on Computing and Society, Past and Future," an event held in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the founding of Engineering Research Associates. The event was organized by and held at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, on September 9 and 10, 1986. The Sperry Corporation was the event sponsor.