No ordinary being
Subtitle: W. Starling Burgess: inventor, naval architect, poet, aviation pioneer, and master of American design : a biography
By: by Llewellyn Howland III
Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, in association with New Redford Whaling Museum and Mystic Seaport Museum
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Jaffrey, New Hampshire
Language: eng
Number of pages: 455
ISBN-13: 9781567925265
Subjects: Inventors; Biography; Naval architects; Yacht designers; American Poets; Aeronautical engineers; Businessmen
Description: "Few twentieth-century Americans lived a more creative, event-filled, and often conflicted life than the Boston-born aviation pioneer and yacht designer W. Starling Burgess. Orphaned at twelve, Burgess received his first patent at nineteen, left Harvard, and, following the suicide of the first of his five wives, published a book of poetry at twenty-four. Among his children was the celebrated author-artist Tasha Tudor. After launching his career as a yacht designer, Burgess built the first airplane to fly the skies of New England (in 1910) and was selected as the sole manufacturer of aircraft under the Wright Brothers' patents. He received the prestigious Collier Trophy 'for the greatest progress in aviation.' His company was a primary supplier of both civilian and military aircraft before the main factory in Marblehead burned to the ground in 1918. After World War I, Burgess returned to his first love, yacht design, drafting the lines for three successive Gloucester fishing schooners to compete against Canadian entries for the International Fishermen's Trophy--and in 1924 introduced the staysail rig on the all-but-unbeatable schooner yacht Advance. He later designed the three acclaimed America's Cup-winners: the J-Class sloops Enterprise (1930), Rainbow (1934), and Ranger (1937). In 1933, he collaborated with R. Buckminster Fuller to design and create the revolutionary Dymaxion automobile. Although an occasional morphine user (Burgess was successfully treated for chronic ulcers on the eve of World War II), he enjoyed some of his most productive years as a naval architect and inventor doing top secret anti-submarine work for the Navy and Air Force"--Provided by publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 431-439) and index.
Table of contents: title: Burgess Sons, Burgess Brothers, 1878-1891; title: Milton, Cambridge, Boston, Salem, 1892-1902; title: Salem, London, and Salem, 1902-1904; title: Burgess of Burgess & Packard, 1904-1910; title: From Kitty Hawk to Plum Island, 1910; title: Plum Island to Squantum, 1910; title: Burgess, the Wright brothers, and the Moth, 1910-1911; title: Aero and Hydro, 1911-1912; title: The creation of a lifetime, 1912-1914; title: Up in smoke, 1914-1918; title: Vanitie, 1919-1920; title: Burgess & Paine, naval architects, 1920-1923; title: Advance and retreat, 1923-1926; title: The House of Burgess/and Morgan : 1926-1927; title: Eights, 10's 12's, MS, Atlantics/and Nina, 1927-1929; title: Enterprise, 1929-1930; title: The dymaxion car, rainbow, and a pot of gold, 1930-1934; title: In the light of the sunlit town, 1934-1936; title: Ranger and the Yankee one-design, 1936-1937; title: From Birch Point to Manhattan, 1937-1939; title: Hull No. 214, Pomelion and Castle Hill, 1940-1941; title: The edible plate : 1941-1943; title: Luis de Flores and Asdevlant, 1943-1944; title: To Hoboken/and the City of Golden Towers, 1945-1947; title: Afterword; title: Yachts and boats designed by W. Starling Burgess.