Brennan’s Monorail Car
date: label: date made
content: early 20th century
name: label: maker
content: Central Scientific Company
notes: label: Description
content: Louis Brennan (1852-1932) was an Irish-Australian mechanical engineer and inventor who developed several devices for military use. One was a gyroscopic arrangement for balancing a car upon a single rail. The Central Scientific Co. of Chicago made this example of Brennan’s monorail car. Some of the details were worked out by Henry Crew and Robert Tatnall, physicists at Northwestern University.
label: Description
content: Ref: Louis Brennan, “Means for Imparting Stability to Unstable Bodies,” U.S. Patent 796,893 (Aug. 8, 1905).
label: Description
content: Louis Brennan, “Means for Imparting Stability to Unstable Bodies,” U.S. Patent 1,183,530 (May 16, 1916).
label: Description
content: Central Scientific Co., <i>Brennan’s Mono-Rail Car</i> (Chicago, [ca. 1910]).
label: Description
content: Norman Tomlinson, <i>Louis Brennan: Inventor Extraordinaire</i> (Chatham, 1980).
label: Description
content: Cleveland Moffett, “The Edge of the Future in Science: Transportation and the Gyroscope: Louis Brennan’s Mono-Rail Car,” </i>McClure’s Magazine</i> 30 (Dec. 1907): 163-174.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Illinois, Chicago
topic: label: Subject
content: Science & Scientific Instruments
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.322967
label: catalog number
content: 322967
label: accession number
content: 249200
objectType: label: Object Name
content: gyroscope
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 3/4 in x 20 in x 9 5/8 in; 24.765 cm x 50.8 cm x 24.4475 cm