He worked at Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1896 to 1897, then became an instructor of physics at Yale, where he taught from 1897 to 1900.

[6][7] In 1914 he patented a radical new aircraft propulsion system that was later incorporated into his first seaplane prototype, the Gallaudet D-1 that was first tested on the Thames River in Connecticut.

The need for larger facilities and a better location to test his seaplanes, he moved his company to Chepiwanoxet Point on the Narragansett Bay coast in Rhode Island.

In 1923 Gallaudet built an all-metal aircraft, the TW-3 that first flew on June 20, 1923 at Wilbur Wright Field in Ohio.

The company assets were acquired by Major Reuben H. Fleet, who used them as the core around which he founded Consolidated Aircraft Corporation.