William Seward Burroughs I
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| - | '''William Seward Burroughs III''' (July 21, 1947 – March 3, 1981) was an American novelist, also known as '''William S. Burroughs Jr.''' and '''Billy Burroughs'''. He bears the name of both his [[William S. Burroughs|father]] and his great grandfather, [[William Seward Burroughs I]], the original inventor of the Burroughs adding machine. He wrote three novels, two of which were published as ''[[Speed (novel)|Speed]]'' (1970) and ''[[Kentucky Ham]]'' (1973). His third novel, ''Prakriti Junction,'' begun in 1977, was never completed, although extracts from it were included in his third published work ''[[Cursed From Birth]]''. | + | '''William Seward Burroughs I''' (January 28, 1855 – September 15, 1898) was an American inventor born in [[Rochester, New York]]. He was the grandfather of [[Beat Generation]] writer [[William S. Burroughs]] and great-grandfather of [[William S. Burroughs, Jr.]], who was also a writer. |
| - | Burroughs Jr. underwent a [[liver transplant]] in 1976 after developing [[cirrhosis]]. He died in 1981, at the age of 33, from alcoholism and liver failure. Burroughs Jr. appears briefly in the 1983 documentary ''[[Burroughs: The Movie]]'', about his father, in which he discusses his childhood, his liver problems, and his relationship with his family. In the documentary, [[John Giorno]] calls him "the last [[beatnik]]." | + | ==Life and career== |
| + | Burroughs was the son of a mechanic and worked with machines throughout his childhood. While he was still a small boy, his parents moved to [[Auburn, New York]], where he and his brothers were educated in the public school system. At this time Burroughs became interested in solving the problem of creating an adding machine. In the bank there had been a number of earlier prototypes, but in inexperienced users' hands, those that existed would sometimes give incorrect, and at times outrageous, answers. The clerk work was not in accordance with Burrough's wishes, for he had a natural love and talent for mechanics, and the boredom and monotony of clerical life weighed heavily upon him. Seven years in the bank damaged his health, and he was forced to resign. | ||
| - | == Childhood == | + | In the beginning of the 1880s (1880-1882) Burroughs was advised by a doctor to move to an area with a warmer climate and he moved to [[St. Louis]], [[Missouri]] where he obtained a job in the [[Joseph Boyer|Boyer Machine Shop]]. These new surroundings, which appealed to him more, hastened the development of the idea he had already in his mind, and the tools of his new craft gave him the opportunity to put into tangible form the first conception of the adding machine. Accuracy was the foundation of his work. No ordinary materials were good enough for his creation. His drawings were made on metal plates which could not expand or shrink by the smallest fraction of an inch. He worked with hardened tools, sharpened to fine points, and when he struck a center or drew a line, it was done under a microscope. |
| - | Burroughs was born in [[Conroe, Texas]], to [[William S. Burroughs]] and [[Joan Vollmer]]. His mother was addicted to [[amphetamine]]s, and his father was a [[heroin]] addict. [[Herbert Huncke]], a friend of his parents, relates that when Joan was pregnant he would drive into [[Houston]] to obtain [[Benzedrine]], an inhaled amphetamine, for her. | + | So, he invented a "[[adding machine|calculating machine]]" (first patent filed in 1885) designed to ease the monotony of clerical work. He was a founder of the [[American Arithmometer Company]] (1886), which later became the Burroughs Adding Machine Company (1904), then the [[Burroughs Corporation]] (1953) and in 1986, merged with [[Sperry Corporation]] to form [[Unisys]]. He was posthumously inducted into the [[National Inventors Hall of Fame]]. He was the grandfather of [[Beat Generation]] writer [[William S. Burroughs]] and great-grandfather of [[William S. Burroughs, Jr.]], who was also a writer. |
| - | On September 6, 1951 Billy's father accidentally shot and killed his mother in a drunken game of '[[William Tell]]' in [[Mexico City]]. In chapter three of his second novel, ''Kentucky Ham'', Burroughs relates his memory of the day his mother was shot dead, as well as the following reunion with his father after he was freed from a Mexico City prison. While his father stayed in Mexico, Billy went to live with his paternal grandparents – Mortimer and Laura Lee Burroughs, in [[St. Louis, Missouri]]. In spring 1952, when Billy was nearly 5, he moved with his grandparents to [[Palm Beach, Florida]], where they relocated their store, Cobblestone Gardens. By his own account, Billy said his grandparents were kind and reassuring; yet as they grew older, and he grew into adolescence, they were unable to relate. | + | He died in [[Citronelle, Alabama]] and was interred in [[Bellefontaine Cemetery]] in St. Louis, Missouri. |
| - | When Billy was 13, his grandparents asked William S. Burroughs to take Billy back. He agreed, and Billy was sent alone by air to [[Tangiers]], [[Morocco]], to live with his father. In Tangiers, Billy was introduced to [[marijuana]], and he experienced several episodes of grown men attempting to rape him. By his father's own admission, the visit was a failed attempt to rehabilitate their relationship. After Burroughs' lover, [[Ian Sommerville (technician)|Ian Sommerville]], convinced William that his son was irrevocably homesick, Billy returned to Palm Beach. | ||
| - | When Billy was fifteen, he accidentally shot his best friend in the neck with a rifle, causing an almost fatal wound. This event caused him to suffer a [[nervous breakdown]]. According to ''Kentucky Ham'', Billy thought his friend was dead and ran away from home to seek refuge in a girlfriend's family [[fallout shelter]]. He planned to flee to [[California]], convinced that he was a murderer. Yet his friend lived, and the police ruled the wounding unintentional. Still, this act did not go unnoticed in the exclusive Palm Beach community, and the manner in which his mother perished at the hand of his father was revived{{clarify|date=March 2013}}. Billy was sent to a [[mental hospital]] in St. Louis for help, but threats to run away caused Mortimer and Laura to bring their grandson home. Bill then attended Green Valley, an alternative school based on the principles of English educator [[A.S. Neill]], in Orange City, Florida, from 1965 to 1966. | ||
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| - | == Drug addiction == | ||
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| - | Living in a wealthy section of Palm Beach, Billy Burroughs began to spend more time out of his grandparents' care and beyond the reach of local authorities. Burroughs became addicted to amphetamines and resorted to criminal behavior to obtain them: forging [[medical prescription|prescriptions]] and visiting doctors' offices to steal prescription pads. He was soon arrested, but he was not an adult, and had the tragic story of his parents' life to temper criminal proceedings against him. Nevertheless, his second novel begins with his condemnation to a four-year suspended sentence and required admission to the [[Federal Narcotics Farm at Lexington]] in [[Kentucky]]. This prison was one of two U.S. Federal prison hospitals treating persons convicted of federal drug crimes in the United States from 1935 until 1973. | ||
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| - | After being released on parole in 1968, he quit his addiction to amphetamines and returned to The Green Valley School, a private institution run by Reverend Von Hilsheimer in [[Orange City, Florida]]. The Green Valley School was where Burroughs met his future wife, a 17-year-old [[Jewish]] girl from [[Savannah, Georgia]] named Karen Perry, who came from a privileged background. The two formed a romantic relationship and were married in 1969, settling in Savannah. Burroughs began to write; Perry worked as a waitress. | ||
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| - | == Alcoholism == | ||
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| - | The marriage disintegrated in 1974, when Karen left Burroughs because of his chronic [[alcoholism]]. Despite the publication of his novels, he was increasingly alienated from friends and family, and there were long periods when his whereabouts were unknown. When he showed up in [[Boulder, Colorado]], to visit his father and [[Allen Ginsberg]] at Ginsberg's [[Buddhist]] institute at the [[Jack Kerouac School|Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics]], he had the appearance of a "[[homelessness|derelict]]." | ||
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| - | In 1976, during a dinner with Ginsberg and his father, Burroughs began vomiting blood. When the heaving would not stop, he was admitted to Colorado General Hospital, where it was discovered that he was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. The hospital was one of only two institutions in 1976 that performed [[liver transplant]]s. [[Thomas Starzl]] had performed over 100 transplants, with a survival rate of less than 30 %. Nevertheless, Billy profited from Starzl's care. Although Burroughs spent months in and out of the hospital, and there were many serious complications, the operation was successful. However, despite the obvious risks, Burroughs kept drinking. Many people, notably Allen Ginsberg, tried to encourage him to quit, but Burroughs' self-destructive behavior continued.{{citation needed|date=October 2013}} | ||
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| - | Eventually, Burroughs began to express hostility and anger towards his father. He published a damning article in ''[[Esquire magazine|Esquire]]'', explaining how his life was "ruined" by his father’s actions. The estrangement between father and son was never reconciled. | ||
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| - | == Death == | ||
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| - | In 1981, Burroughs stopped taking his [[Immunosuppressive drug|anti-rejection drugs]]. Allen Ginsberg was notified that Burroughs had returned to Florida to reconnect with the founder of the Green Valley School. Shortly after, Burroughs was found lying chilled, drunk, and exhausted in a shallow ditch at the side of a [[DeLand, Florida]], highway on March 2. A passerby took him to a local hospital, where he died the following day at 6:35 a.m. of [[cirrhosis|acute gastrointestinal hemorrhage associated with micronodular cirrhosis]]. He was 33 years old. Burroughs was cremated and his ashes buried in Boulder, Colorado. | ||
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| - | == Writing style == | ||
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| - | William S. Burroughs Jr. wrote two [[autobiographical novel]]s, and was working on a third. He began writing poetry at the Green Valley School when he was 21 in 1968 and completed his first novel ''Speed'' in 1970. His novels show much promise and also have interest for readers because of their [[Beat generation|Beat]] sensibility. The novels relate the trips of a teenage runaway in the early 1960s, and are comparable in style and content to both [[Kerouac]]’s ''On the Road'' and his father’s ''Junkie''. His friendships, his drug use, and his social commentary make each novel interesting, if at times unpolished. Some time after the death of Burroughs Jr., his father invited David Ohle to edit the manuscript of his late son's unfinished novel ''Prakriti Junction''. The manuscript was unpublishable so, instead, Ohle compiled a work from the manuscript, the last journals and poems of Burroughs Jr., and correspondence and interviews with those who knew him. | ||
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| - | == Bibliography == | ||
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| - | * ''[[Speed (novel)|Speed]]'' (1970) | ||
| - | * ''[[Kentucky Ham]]'' (1973) | ||
| - | * ''Prakriti Junction'' (1977-1978, unfinished) | ||
| - | * ''Speed and Kentucky Ham: Two Novels'' (1993, novel compilation) | ||
| - | * ''[[Cursed from Birth]]: The Short, Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs Jr.'' (2006, compiled by David Ohle) | ||
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William Seward Burroughs I (January 28, 1855 – September 15, 1898) was an American inventor born in Rochester, New York. He was the grandfather of Beat Generation writer William S. Burroughs and great-grandfather of William S. Burroughs, Jr., who was also a writer.
[edit]
Life and career
Burroughs was the son of a mechanic and worked with machines throughout his childhood. While he was still a small boy, his parents moved to Auburn, New York, where he and his brothers were educated in the public school system. At this time Burroughs became interested in solving the problem of creating an adding machine. In the bank there had been a number of earlier prototypes, but in inexperienced users' hands, those that existed would sometimes give incorrect, and at times outrageous, answers. The clerk work was not in accordance with Burrough's wishes, for he had a natural love and talent for mechanics, and the boredom and monotony of clerical life weighed heavily upon him. Seven years in the bank damaged his health, and he was forced to resign.
In the beginning of the 1880s (1880-1882) Burroughs was advised by a doctor to move to an area with a warmer climate and he moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he obtained a job in the Boyer Machine Shop. These new surroundings, which appealed to him more, hastened the development of the idea he had already in his mind, and the tools of his new craft gave him the opportunity to put into tangible form the first conception of the adding machine. Accuracy was the foundation of his work. No ordinary materials were good enough for his creation. His drawings were made on metal plates which could not expand or shrink by the smallest fraction of an inch. He worked with hardened tools, sharpened to fine points, and when he struck a center or drew a line, it was done under a microscope.
So, he invented a "calculating machine" (first patent filed in 1885) designed to ease the monotony of clerical work. He was a founder of the American Arithmometer Company (1886), which later became the Burroughs Adding Machine Company (1904), then the Burroughs Corporation (1953) and in 1986, merged with Sperry Corporation to form Unisys. He was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He was the grandfather of Beat Generation writer William S. Burroughs and great-grandfather of William S. Burroughs, Jr., who was also a writer.
He died in Citronelle, Alabama and was interred in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.
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