Born in 1857, William S. Burroughs ingeniously devised one of the first mechanical adding machines capable of quickly and accurately processing numeric calculations that had previously required endless tedious handwork. His invention was a landmark breakthrough in office technology and productivity that helped usher businesses into the modern information age.
Overview and Historical Significance
William‘s adding machine earned him a prominent place among pioneers like Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison who drove America‘s innovation boom during the Industrial Revolution. As the founder of the company bearing his name, Burroughs paved the way for the entire office computer industry that his business evolved into over a century after his death.
Beyond his technological accomplishments, however, William‘s personal life was mired by family emotional distance, substance abuse issues, chronic illness, and an early death at only 41. Yet his grandson William S. Burroughs became one of the most influential avant-garde novelists of the 20th century.
Early Life: Building Contraptions from Childhood
William Seward Burroughs was born in 1857 in Rochester, New York to Ellen and Edmund Burroughs. Edmund ran a machine shop and young William displayed an early mechanical aptitude.
According to his brother:
"William spent much time in his father‘s workshop where he had a turning lathe and tools. He was a particular boy and distant, not inclined toward the normal sports and games enjoyed by boys his age. He preferred making things instead."
The family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts where William attended high school and first conceived of his adding machine idea after attending a lecture on mathematical shortcuts. The speaker described various calculation theories that inspired William but also overwhelmed him as just a teenager. He felt hopeless to understand such complex concepts without a mechanical aid.
William recounted this transformative experience:
"Leaving the lecture, I felt I must someday build a machine that could accomplish the feats of rapid calculation I had just witnessed. An adding machine people could use without such mastery of theory."
This ambition drove his next phase pursuing patent protection for what would become the Burroughs Adding Machine.
A Timeline of William‘s Life
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1857 | Born in Rochester, New York |
| 1871 | Enrolls at Auburn High School |
| 1874 | Takes job as bank clerk after graduation |
| 1879 | Marries Ida Selover |
| 1885 | Files patent for adding machine invention |
| 1886 | Founds the American Arithmometer Company |
| 1898 | Passes away at 41 in Alabama |
Invention Development Process
After moving to St. Louis for his health in 1880, William worked in various machine shops and factories. This hands-on experience working with lathes, gear trains, and other equipment informed his adding machine prototype. It featured:
- Numbered digit keys arranged in a keyboard layout familiar to modern calculators
- Operational function keys for triggering addition, subtraction, etc.
- Gears, levers, slides, and rotating shafts inside for mechanical computation
- A readout dial displaying numbered calculation results
This was a dramatic improvement over error-prone hand calculation methods of the era. By entering digits sequentially and pressing a function key, accurate summed totals were near instantaneous. Such processing speed revolutionized accounting, finance, statistics, and any numeric-based office work.
Over four decades the Burroughs Adding Machine Company sold over one million units across America installed in major corporations, banks, insurance companies, government agencies, and more. The adding machine increasingly became an indispensable technology for managing business information.
Troubled Personal Life
Tuberculosis contracting as a young bank clerk plagued Burroughs with health problems his whole life, causing his relocation to St. Louis then later to Alabama. He married Ida Selover in 1879 with whom he had two sons and two daughters.
By all accounts, William was an aloof and demanding father consumed by his invention ambitions, as his daughter described:
"Father had little time for us as children. He could be affectionate but was often impatient, short-tempered, and unavailable buried away in his workshop."
His alcoholism and emotional absence took a toll on the family despite the eventual business success he achieved. After Ida died, Burroughs quickly remarried to a caretaker for his children but never meaningfully reconciled with them before his early death at 41. Financial riches failed to bring William inner peace and happiness.
Lasting Business Legacy
While the man suffered greatly from personal demons, his ingenious adding machine concept sparked an business empire. Under leadership of his son and grandson in the early 20th century, Burroughs Corporation adapted with the technology times.
Beyond various adding machines, they produced:
- Mechanical typewriters and bookkeeping machines
- Electromechanical copiers and accounting processors
- Early electronic computers and word processors
The company revenue topped $3 billion by the 1960s. It later merged through several acquisitions over the decades before becoming Unisys in 1986 as a global information technology provider still operating today.
The root of this vast corporation traces back to William‘s original adding machine developed to simplify numeric work. That purpose has endured as computers continue accelerating business productivity into the 21st century. William‘s invention was a keystone advancement that helped launch the information age.
So while living a painful short life, William Seymour Burroughs‘ technology breakthroughs echo through time. And his grandson William later captivated millions questioning conformity in postwar America through 20 avant-garde novels. In different ways, both dramatically shaped culture and history.
