Microwave technology and careers in transition: the interests and activities of visitors to the Sperry Gyroscope Company´s klystron plant in 1939-40

The story of the origin and impetus for the outside financial support, and to some extent the industrial effort that first made the klystron available for use in systems, is reconstructed from the visitor register for the Sperry Gyroscope Company plant in San Carlos, California, which operated only from June 1939 through November 1940 and where klystron tubes were first manufactured. The facility never had more than 12 employees, but it was a crossroads for visitors with widely different levels of interest and responsibility. The background to the activities at Sperry is given. Many of the 115 visitors who signed the register were contacted, and valuable information was obtained from them. This information is combined with information from other sources to form a historical mosaic created around individuals who played important roles in bringing new systems and equipment into being between 1940 and 1945