The Birth of an ERA: Engineering Associates, Inc. 1946-1955

An account is presented of the early years of a pioneering computer company, Engineering Research Associates, Inc. (ERA), which was formed in 1946 at St. Paul, Minnesota, with Navy encouragement. This company was merged into Remington Rand Inc., in 1952, as was Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation two years earlier. These mergers created the basis for what later became the Univac division of Sperry Rand Corporation, or Sperry Univac. ERA's technological contributions are discussed, along with the company's pre-merger growth and financing problems. There were post-merger problems, primarily of organizational integration, but solid groundwork was being laid for Sperry Rand's eventual success in the data processing industry.