magnetic compasses) developed the first gyrocompass to be installed on a commercial vessel. C. Plath sold many gyrocompasses to the Weems' School for Navigation in Annapolis, MD, and soon the founders of each organization formed an alliance and became Weems & Plath.

Before the success of the gyrocompass, several attempts had been made in Europe to use a gyroscope instead. By 1880, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) tried to propose a gyrostat to