Tonight, we’ll read the opening to the humorous short story “An Experiment in Gyro-Hats” written by Ellis Parker Butler and published in 1910.

Butler was a prolific American writer, although his writing was mostly a part-time endeavor for him as he was also a banker. Butler was also known as an always-present force in the New York City literary scene.

A gyroscope is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation. It is a spinning disc in which the axis of rotation is free to assume any orientation by itself.

While in this story a gyroscope is used in a hat, real life applications include the Hubble telescope, submarines, and smartphones.

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