[SIGCIS-Members] Burroughs Corporation in South Africa

Tue Jul 22 14:22:15 PDT 2025

Jim Scherrer, head of the "Compuseum" in Philadelphia, recently had a wonderful Zoom program on Burroughs, concentrating on the Paoli plant in the suburbs. I believe he is on this Listserv. He got in touch with a lot of Burroughs alumni, some of whom may be able to help you.

https:\\thecompuseum.org

William S. Burroughs, the Beat author, had little to do with his namesake, the inventor. He claimed (without documentation, because he didn't have to!), that Wall St. financiers looted the inheritance, and he got very little. In one of his writings, he does mention an interesting connection between his heroin addiction and the senior Burroughs' invention of a specific device, which was the key to the success of his adding machine, in comparison to those produced by other companies. It's a bit of a stretch. If anyone is interested I can discuss it off-line.
Best,
Paul Ceruzzi
www.substack.com/@paulceruzzi
________________________________
From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of James Cortada via Members <members at lists.sigcis.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2025 3:15 PM
To: Jeffrey Yost <yostx003 at umn.edu>
Cc: Sigcis <members at sigcis.org>; Amanda Wick <abwick at umn.edu>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Burroughs Corporation in South Africa

External Email - Exercise Caution

. . . and for the rest of you reading Jeff's note, the corporate records are so comprehensive that when I was starting to do research on the history of information technology companies, I seriously considered writing a history of Burroughs, because not only was the firm important, but all its papers were in one place.  Doesn't get any better than that for an historian.  I was working for IBM at the time and chose instead to write histories of IBM.  Burroughs Corporation remains a huge opportunity for an historian.  If I was younger and lived in Minneapolis I would be all over this topic.  Models of how to write such corporate histories are all over the place.  Jim

On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 2:07 PM Jeffrey Yost via Members <members at lists.sigcis.org<mailto:members at lists.sigcis.org>> wrote:
Hi Bernard,

Interesting sounding project, having the Burroughs Collection here, and having read William S. Burroughs' books, including Junkie to Naked Lunch, while I was in college, I often wondered about him and his corporate family. Yes, Burroughs Corporation was quite active in South Africa. CBI has the Burroughs Corporate Records Collection which details a tremendous number of aspects of the company, a really extensive corporate collection, from the 1880s American Arithmometer days in St. Louis, to the move of HQ to Detroit and renaming as Burrough Adding Machine and later Burroughs Corporation (and expanding around the world including South Africa and elsewhere in Global South as well as Europe...). The collection is over 600 boxes, spans all functional areas, and is divided into 111 Series or Sub Collections. There are collections on International, on Plants, etc. The general statement on the collection and links to the 111 Sub Collections is below. We had a digitization project a quarter century ago and did detailed cataloguing of 500 select Burroughs images and put them online on University Libraries UMedia of UMN, but I don't think there are any of Burroughs' South Africa among those 500, actually I think it came to 520.  UMedia is Univ. of Minnesota wide, the 520 Burroughs images (by keyword searching the combo of Burrough and Still Images) are here  UMedia Burroughs Corporation photos<https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/search?facets%5Btypes%5D%5B%5D=Still+Image&q=burroughs>

We have many, many thousands of additional Burroughs photos so we might have some in the sub series that are relevant in either print or negatives. While not digitized, the Finding Aid for each sub series is processed down to the folder level, so it should list if photos exist based on subject area.  There are also many illustrations of corporate facilities, line drawings on letterhead and other material.

One thing regarding potential cultural influences you might find interesting is Burroughs Farms, which was a large recreation wooded area with lakes West of Detroit, hundreds of acres of land where the corporation rewarded workers and their families--swimming, hiking, horseback riding....probably archery as well (all in corporate paternalistic fashion). I've wondered if William S. Burroughs spent any time there? (William S. Burroughs killed his wife Joan Vollner in Mexico City in 1951 in an archery "accident.")

Collection: Burroughs Corporation records | University of Minnesota Archival Finding Aids<https://archives.lib.umn.edu/repositories/3/resources/222>

Also, feel free to contact the CBI Archivist and Curator Amanda Wick if wanting additional info on anything. Amanda's email is abwick at umn.edu<mailto:abwick at umn.edu>

Best, Jeff

*   *   *   *   *   *
Jeffrey Yost, Ph.D.
Director, Charles Babbage Institute for Computing, Information & Culture
Research Professor, University of Minnesota

Just Code: Power, Inequality and the Political Economy of IT (Johns Hopkins U. Press out in Nov. 2025 co-edited w/ Gerardo Con Diaz)<https://press.jhu.edu/books/title/12804/just-code>
Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry (MIT Press)<https://amzn.to/3gqe4R6>
Studies in Computing and Culture book series, Johns Hopkins U. Press<https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/series/studies-computing-and-culture> Co-Editor (w/ Con Diaz)
PI, NSF-funded CBI project "Mining a Useable Past: Perspectives, Paradoxes, and Possibilities with Security and Privacy."
Blockchain & Society<https://www.blockchainandsociety.com/> (crit. inq. essays & resources) (Founder/Leader)

Interfaces: Essays and Reviews in Computing and Culture<https://cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces> Co-Editor-in-Chief (w/ Amanda Wick)

On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 12:58 PM Bernard Geoghegan via Members <members at lists.sigcis.org<mailto:members at lists.sigcis.org>> wrote:
Hey colleagues,

A shot in the dark: Does anyone have a handy reference or link or reproduction to visual illustrations related to Burroughs Corporation activities in South Africa, Morocco (a very long shot indeed), or Africa more generally? (Apparently they were quite active in South Africa.) I’m working on something related to writer William S. Burroughs’ indirect links to high tech via the family biz, esp in the Global South. There’s great visuals of Burroughs Corporation around North American activity, like SAGE and NORAD, I haven’t seen much that is from the wider world. Bonus points for visuals with great design or architectural components.

Best wishes, Bernard
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--
James W. Cortada
Senior Research Fellow
Charles Babbage Institute
University of Minnesota
jcortada at umn.edu<mailto:jcortada at umn.edu>
608-274-6382
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