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Home Greek Translation Sidis FAQ
"We attempt to explain rather than advocate."―WJ
INTRODUCTION First came the resurrection of a popular fallacy that child prodigies tend toward unproductive lives. Just why so many believe such a thing is hard to know. There has never been any actual evidence for it.
a great psychologist, somehow caused his son's genius either through some mysterious psychological technique or by having discovered magical educational methods.
Third: a childhood of "all-work-no-play" had caused his supposed failure; and fourth: his working at low-paying jobs was confirmation of all of the above. A fifth false belief was that his fatal brain hemorrhage had psychological causes.
It is not difficult to refute the failure myth. Let's do so one by one. The first misconception is contradicted by the practical fact that no psychologist would claim that genius can be created by any of the methods of psychology.
The second, 'prodigies-burn-out', has been disproved by abundant historical and statistical evidence, especially that provided by Lewis Terman, which shows that vast majority of prodigies go on to lead productive lives. As did Sidis.
The third, "all-work-and-no-play," is contradicted by his mother's description of his early education which was self-motivated. "He asked me a question one day, and then triumphantly said, 'But you will say, "Let's look it up," and I can look it up myself!' That is the last lesson I gave Billy."—The Sidis Story Said his father: "My boy plays―plays with his toys, and plays with his books. And that is the key to the whole situation. Get the child so interested in study that study will truly be play."
The fourth, because Harvard's youngest graduate was as an adult engaged at mere labor, he was therefore a failure. This despite the great scientific discoveries and works of art by persons who were not employees of university corporations. The list is long. Einstein developed his theory of relativity while working as a patent examiner. Newton? Chancellor of the Exchequer. Descartes? Artillery advisor to his king―coordinate geometry. Philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce? Hundreds of articles for encyclopedias and popular science magazines— besides his many books. Painter Paul Gauguin? Bank teller until he quit to pursue his art. Composer Charles Ives? Insurance. (He once said business life made his music richer.)
And Sidis? Accountancy Clerk. He paid his own way instead of living la dolce vita of academe. His hard-earned pay went into his research and self-publishing, especially his extensive travel by street-car across the country researching American history at the local level. And while Tacitus's warning about the addictive nature of fame might have guided him to some degree, the Okamakammesset principle of anonymous contribution was the path under foot―the hardest path to find.
The fifth misconception, that his fatal cerebral hemorrhage at age 46 was caused by "thinking too much," rested on the popular confusion of brain with mind. His father, Boris Sidis, died at age 56 from the same physiological cause.
Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D., wrote in 1919 that there is a widespread fear of precocity: "This abject fear of genius and of precocity is one of the most pernicious philistine superstitions, causing the retardation of the progress of humanity."—Precocity in Children After years of negative publicity surrounding his son, this great psychologist was deleted from the history of American psychology, due in no small part to academe's subservience to public opinion. See the clickable bibliography in the
In the first discussion of William's genius, in The Nation in 1910, possibly written by the great Charles Sanders Peirce, we read: "Dr. Boris Sidis, the eminent psychologist who is the boy's father, is said to regard his son's achievements as indicating that by proper methods of instruction several years could be cut off from the time actually employed in bringing boys up to the college or university stage. With the proposition itself we have no particular fault to find; but that young Sidis's exploits serve in any degree to establish it we deny without hesitation. The part played by native genius is so manifestly predominant in this case as to nullify any general application."
But whom do we blame for the negative image of William Sidis? The failure myth was not just an invention of the press. It rested in the public mind. The press merely fed on it. And reinforced it.
Okamakammesset principle of anonymous contribution further fed the frenzy. (See also Sidis's Pseudonyms.)
SHORT ANNOTATED CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following short biography interweaves an annotated bibliography of Sidis's writings with another of news articles about him during his lifetime. Most of the press clippings can be found in Harvard's Houghton Library, and from microfilms of New York Times articles which are thoroughly indexed and available on microfilm in many research libraries. The only book about him does not dispute the failure myth. One reviewer wrote, "Amy Wallace... skillfully weaves vitality and wit into this very unfortunate story of wasted genius." Not so! Well spent genius. Very well spent.
[William James to Boris Sidis, letters and postcards 1896 - 1907, Houghton Library, Harvard University] ------------------------------------------------------- James occasionally replied to Boris's requests for suggestions re his son's future education James Letters. Boris was one of James's students at Harvard, and was among the first to get the new degree of Ph. D. in Psychology
James's students included Edward Larrabee Thorndike, the founder of the Journal of Educational Psychology. But William Sidis's greatness could not possibly have been caused by anything a psychologist has to offer.
At birth came, randomly, his extremely rare IQ, and oh yes, the never mentioned by family, friends, and media—a photographic memory. I say this because I had the privilege of knowing his Sister Helena, who her seventies all too often would ask: "Don't you remember I told you that?" Some news stories told of his ability to memorize train schedules as he read them.
Then came a fine academic home-schooling generated mostly by himself, but happily and ably aided by his parents (e.g., his mother taught him to how to spell as he learned to speak).
Then came a, presumably, excellent education at Harvard College, and then Harvard Law School. (He completed two years there and left in good standing.)
But declining any further academic affiliation, his life-long self-education and research included hundreds of trolley-car rides to libraries research sites all across America.
Sidis tried to lead a perfect moral life, and remained celibate as part of that goal. He never spoke ill of anyone. His guiding principle was the ancient wisdom of a deceased Native-American nation he had discovered under foot in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
An additional benefit of his principled lifestyle was that he avoided the common ad hominem fallacy of linking his own great abilities with the truth or falsity of his writings. (We readers must do the same. We will judge the truth or falsity of his writings regardless of its author.)
A PHENOMENON IN KILTS Boston Transcript, Nov. 16, 1906 Massachusetts law required boys to attend school, so he had to endure primary school even though he already had a college-entrance education. The article described his progress through grade school. One wonders why the 3rd and 5th grades took so long.
This article, while admiring of him, is also an early example of invasion of his privacy. This subject would come up again in a big way 30 years later.
AN INFANT PRODIGY North American Review, 1907, #184, 887-888 It wasn't long before naysayers laid down what would be a lifelong gauntlet. "With this pathetic eagerness for utterly irrelevant knowledge, went also an exaggerated reverence for the written word." Not so. In fact he had, at an early age, an eagerness for true knowledge and reverence for the truth.
At least the confused article concluded with a positive: "It is to be hoped that the premature development will not stop short, but that the disinterested love of knowledge and of law may solve some of this world's scientific problems." Such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The article also mentions he "spent his summers at a hotel in the mountains...It was his pleasing custom to speak of all the guests in the house, in which he spent his summers..." The hotel or guesthouse may well be Shackford's in Albany, NH, which W. J. named "Passaconaway House" in his first book Passaconaway in the White Mountains, Chapter 13
DR. SIDIS OF BROOKLINE Brookline [MA] Chronicle, Mar. 7, 1908 Boris gets his M.D., becoming perhaps the first to have both a Ph. D. in psychology and M.D. from Harvard. His Ph.D. in psychology was likely looked down upon in the field of psychopathology which was ruled by M.D.'s with little knowledge or understanding of the subject. It's just that they had Rx. Boris's sarcastic opening sentence in a 1899 talk to the American Medico-Psychological Assn. was: "I cannot help feeling grateful to you for the honor you have bestowed on me, a mere psychologist, by your kind invitation to read a paper on any subject in my line of work." Nature & Principles of Psychology
CHILD ENTERS HARVARD Boy Prodigy of Eleven Will Pursue Special Studies New York Times, Sunday, Oct. 10, 1909, p.1. ------------------------------------------------- William is front-page news in the Sunday Edition of this prestigious international newspaper: "The youngest and smallest student ever matriculated at Harvard, entered to-day as a special student. He is William J. Sidis of Brookline, the 11-year- old son of Dr. and Mrs. Boris Sidis." The Times went on to say his parents were originally from Poland. They were from Russia.
HARVARD'S CHILD PRODIGY All Amazed at Mathematical Grasp of Youngest Matriculate Aged 13 Years ------------------------------------------------- "Three years ago the boy first knocked at the classic gates of Harvard for admittance, but the powers that be refused him on account of his youth." New York Times, Mon., Oct. 11, 1909, p.1
Front page for a second day. Remarkable. But already the Times makes a major error: he is not thirteen but eleven years old, as the paper correctly reported just the day before.
We begin to see just how much nonfact can make its way into a newspaper. The article goes on to tell how the registrar, referring to previous attempts at admission, asks: "What, again?" W. J. had passed the entrance exams two years earlier but was rejected because of his age. This year was different however. There was now a prodigy project. Boris had just delivered "Philistine and Genius" to the Harvard Summer School. It dealt with the faults of the educational system and urged early- childhood education. It would come back to haunt him and his son
A SAVANT AT THIRTEEN YOUNG SIDIS KNOWS MORE ON ENTERING THAN MANY ON LEAVING A Scholar at Three New York Times, Sunday, Oct. 17, 1909, Pt.5, p.9 --------------------------------------------------------- For the second time the Times gets the central fact wrong: his age. And things go downhill from there: "He is a Russian Jew―one is tempted to write 'of course' after that sentence, so common are boy wonders among the Jews, and especially among Russian Jews." Worse follows with the first signs of the Burnout Myth that would persist in the press to this day: "Child wonders are usually looked on rather coldly and there are always prophets to predict the sad end of precocity."
SIDIS COULD READ AT TWO YEARS OLD Under Father's Scientific Forcing Almost from Birth New York Times, Oct. 18, 1909, p.7 --------------------------------------------------------- Boris has somehow managed to force genius.
SIDIS OF HARVARD New York Times, Oct. 18, 1909, p.6 --------------------------------------------------------- Asks intelligent questions about his education. Decides reserve energy is his secret power. Maybe so. But as The Nation would soon assert, it is a case of unusual abilities at the far end of the Bell Curve, combined with a pre- school education and home schooling and a student with a love of knowledge.
Youngest Freshman in the History of the College Boston Sunday Herald, Nov. 7, 1909, p.5 --------------------------------------------------------- A picture is worth a thousand words―well maybe less in a newspaper. The distortion of his image implies that something must be wrong with him.
He was not a freshman. He was admitted as a special student in a experimental prodigies project. A number of child prodigies from around the country were "accepted" (assembled) to take part in an experimental curriculum. The aim was to educate them in such a way as to grant them a real BA, not one with an asterisk. He was to take a so-called Half-Course (Mathematics 6 1) extended over a full year. He got a B.
He remained a special student for the next three years taking a full course load, and was matriculated as a senior in his fifth year in 1913. His grades? 10 A's, 9 B's, 4 C's:
The senior class included one Richard Buckminster Fuller who, upon receiving a copy of The Animate and the Inanimate 65 years later, expressed in a letter to Scientific American his "...excitement and joy that Sidis did go on to fulfill his promise."
ELEVEN YEAR OLD BOY LECTURES TO MATHEMATICIANS Answers Questions for Half An Hour; Talks About Parallelopipedon and Hectatonacosahedron With Utmost Ease [ Boston Globe ?], Jan. 6, 1910, p.1.----------------------------------------------------- Fragments: "In the games played in fourth- dimension land the good player is he who can find new short cuts in arriving at points, planes, faces and sides. When you find a new short cut you get the same pleasant sensation as when you are able to fit two pieces into a jig-saw puzzle at the same time. But the real situation is that we live in a three-dimensional world. We know length, breadth, and height. Suppose we... had one more dimension, a fourth? The easy manner in which, in his discussions, he approached and passed over the word "parallelopipedon" made the professors gasp, and when he began to coin a few words and between breaths slipped out "hectatonacosahedragon" [hectatonacosahedron?]... After drawing figures and proving theories until everyone in the room was amazed, young Sidis suddenly glanced at his watch in true platform style and brought his lecture to a close. Then the professors asked him questions for half an hour."
Boy of 11 Astounds Professors Boston Transcript, Jan. 6, 1910, p.1 ---------------------------------------------------- Front-page hyperbole. Only a few faculty were present, and none said he was astounded, though one thought Sidis showed "great promise."
BOY OF TEN ADDRESSES HARVARD TEACHERS New York Times, Jan. 6, 1910, p.1
The Times gets his age wrong yet again, this time lower rather than higher. His age was the most important aspect of the news about him at the time.
Here are the minutes of that meeting of the Harvard Math Club.
ILLUSTRATING A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION (letter to the Editor) New York Times, Jan. 7, 1910, p.8 Young Sidis' Training (letter to the Editor) New York Times, Jan. 9, 1910, p.8 The Golden Age of Youth (letter to the Editor) New York Times, Jan. 11, 1910, p.8 -------------------------------------------------- Readers begin to wonder about 'burnout'. It is here we begin to see the public's role in what a newspaper says. The burnout myth was a public misconception. The media here express that misconception.
Sidis An Avatar? (letter to the Editor) New York Times, Jan. 12, 1910, p.8 ----------------------------------------------------- Apparently not all its readers believed in burnout.
Precocity and Genius The Nation, Jan. 13, 1910, pp. 31-32 ----------------------------------------------------- This article, possibly written by the great American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, discusses nurture vs. nature.
He Has No Equal: William James Sidis World's Most Wonderful Boy Utica [NY] Saturday Globe, Jan. 15, 1910 ------------------------------------------------------------ Article says, "Oh well, look at his father and mother. Dr. Sidis is a Harvard man and has an international reputation for his brilliant work...while his wife [Dr. Sarah Sidis] holds the degree of medicine and is wonderfully brilliant."
Professor Sidis Assails Harvard Methods Offers New Child Training Ideas Fragment from Boston (?) newspaper, Jan. 17, 1910. ------------------------------------------------------- Article about Boris's new book Philistine and Genius reads, "...or at least it is supposed that [Harvard's] President Eliot was referred to..." There must have been some Harvard brew-ha-ha over this matter. The average Harvard professor doesn't get much media attention at all, let alone a taste of 15-minute superstardom. But Boris was mainly questioning the educational system in and did not mention Harvard. This matter will reappear shortly.
Of Personal Interest ------------------------------------------------ Boston Advocate, Jan. 17, 1910
"Bending the Twig" Sidis" by Harold Addington Bruce American Monthly, 1910, #69, 690-695 ------------------------------------------------------------ Writer Harold Addington Bruce was a Sidis family friend.
American Magazine, 1910, #71, 71-81 ------------------------------------------------------ Article about the major psychologists of the time presents Boris Sidis and Sigmund Freud as equal in influence. Boris strongly argued against the fundamental assumptions of psychoanalysis in a number of his books. Freud made sure to ignore him.
The Boy Prodigy of Harvard --------------------------------------------------------- Current Literature, 1910, #48, 291-293
"Boy prodigy and the Fourth Dimension" by F. Fleischman Harpers Weekly, 1910, #54, 9
Sidis Boy Independent, 1910, #68, 162
Advertisement in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1910
Dr. Sidis To Open Novel Institution Made Possible by Mrs. Martha Jones Gift New Bedford [MA] Standard, June 25, 1911
------------------------------------------------------------------------ The first of what became known as residential treatment centers. One of its many innovations was residential family therapy.
[Book review of] Philistine and Genius by Boris Sidis. New York Times, June 25, 1911, p. 404
Dr. Sidis In An Unkind Mood: His Vigorous and Unkind Indictment of the American System of Popular Education New York Times, June 25, 1911, p. 402 ------------------------------------------------------------- Review of Boris's 10th book, Philistine and Geniusin which he argued that education should begin much earlier than age five. He added that "In every child there is genius."
Dr. Sidis On Education Boston Transcript, July 1, 1911
"Intellectual Precocity: Comparison Between J. S. Mill and the Son of Dr. Boris Sidis" by Tom Williams Pedagogical Seminary, 1911, #18, 85-103
"Lightning Calculators" by Harold Addington Bruce McClure's Magazine, 1912, #39, 586-596 ---------------------------------------------------------- Has picture of WJS but nothing about him.
"Precocious Children" by Katherine Dolbear Pedagogical Seminary, 1912, #19, 461-491 ---------------------------------------------------------- "The effect of his education seems to have been to produce a boy who can do wonderful, even brilliant reasoning but has difficulty in transferring that reasoning power to everyday affairs. In a class room at Harvard where a formula was being explained the boy became bored and began to balance his hat upside down on his head." Academic statement of the burnout myth.
Portrait McClure's Magazine, 1912, #39, 586
Portrait Literary Digest, 1912, #54, 514
"A Record of Experiments" by Joseph Hyslop Proc. of Amer. Soc. of Psychical Research, 1912, #6, 371-372 -------------------------------------------------------------- A subject in an experimental investigation of psychic processes happens to mention Sidis.
The Dormant Waker New York Times, Feb. 18, 1913, p.12 ---------------------------------------------------- Discusses Boris's Psychology of Sleep but refers to him as "a Harvard Professor, unnamed"
[Untitled] New York Times, May 7, 1914, p.10 ---------------------------------------------------- Leaks, a month early, impending graduation of Sidis from Harvard.
Harvard A. B. At 16, William James Sidis, the youngest student to get degree there New York Times, June 14, 1914, p.1 ---------------------------------------------------------- His transcript indicates he was given no special treatment and that he did well enough on his exams and other requirements to graduate Cum Laude at the age of an average high school senior.
Sidis, W. J., Unconscious Intelligence Appendix IV of Symptomatology, Psychognosis, and Diagnosis of Psychopathic Diseases by Boris Sidis Ph.D., M.D. Boston: Badger, 1914, 432-439. ------------------------------------------------------ Presents a logical argument against the foundations of psychoanalysis.
He argues that psychoanalytic theory makes a classic scientific error by assigning different causes to the same effects. The effects caused by a psychoanalytic 'unconscious' and the effects caused by conscious processes, "...have no points of difference sufficient to justify a difference in explanation (p. 435)."
This Plan Is Full Of Promise New York Times, April 24, 1915, p.10 ------------------------------------------------------ Subtly hints at 'burnout'.
'14 - William James Sidis Is A Fellow In Mathematics (instructing) at the Rice Institute, Houston, Tex. Harvard Bulletin, Oct. 20, 1915 -------------------------------------------------- Being constitutionally unable to be a faculty member, then or thereafter, he returned to Boston and entered Harvard Law School.
"A Twelve Year Old Boy Wonder Child" by R. H. Moulton American Magazine, Feb. 1915, #79, 56-58
"Portrait" Illustrated World, 1915, #24, 49
"William James Sidis, the Harvard Prodigy Who Graduated At 16, as he looks today (caption under photo)." ------------------------------------------------------ Fragment from Boston Sunday Herald
Bruce, Harold Addington The Riddle of Personality NY: Moffat Yard, 1915, 88-93 ------------------------------------------ Bruce offers a 'bending the twig' theory of education.
'Nerves' and Experts On What To Eat: Dr. Boris Sidis Considers Abnormal Psychology Exaggerated Heredity Boston Herald, March 24, 1917 ------------------------------------------------------- A complete confusion of Boris's theory that genes play a major part in our makeup and his distinction between the 'abnormal' and the 'pathological' in his masterwork The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology : "The abnormal is the normal out of place [e.g., walking is normal but not while asleep], the 'pathological' is the normal under extreme conditions [e.g., excessive cleanliness]
[Transcript from Harvard Law School, 1917] That he also completed two years at Harvard Law, was never mentioned by the press.
Sidis, William "A Remark on the Occurrence of Revolutions" (with foreword by Boris Sidis) Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1918, 13, 213-228 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sidis remarks on a statistical correlation between sunspot cycles the occurrence of revolutions.
Revolutions
Arrest 114 Men and Women In Connection with Riot Boston Herald, May 3, 1919 -------------------------------------------------------------- "Riot" = peaceful protest.
Arrest 102 In Roxbury Boston Transcript, May 3, 1919
Four Boston Radicals Get Prison Sentences New York Times, May 3, 1919
Boston Rioters' Cases Disposed Of Bangor [Maine] Commercial, May 3, 1919
Sidis Gets Year And Half In Jail
Distortion of his beliefs and picture notwithstanding, this article details his testimony in the trial that focused on his beliefs. Interestingly, his political socialism at age 21seems based on the Declaration of Independence and government by consent of the governed. His later libertarianism and pacifism were based on the same principles of the primacy of individual rights. Click the picture or the link above it for full text of this article.
Young Sidis, "Harvard Prodigy," Sentenced To A Year And A Half In Jail For Rioting New York Times, May 14, 1919, p.1 -------------------------------------------------------------- He served the time in house arrest supervised by his parents. See his description of this in
A Youthful Prodigy In Trouble New York Times, May 15, 1919, p.16 Genius Early Revealed New York Times, May 15, 1919, p.16 ------------------------------------------------------ Burnout myth grows. Having taken part in an anti-draft demonstration suggests burn-out.
Boris Sidis The Harvard Boy Prodigy A Candidate To Serve Out A Jail Sentence Is A Candidate For Attorney General of Massachusetts Lowell [MA] Courier-Citizen, June 11, 1919 -------------------------------------------------------------- Article states, "He stands to know a few things about the law before he gets through." This was a period of high activism and personal profile in public life. His declared 'candidacy' was a symbolic act to make a point.
[Tuesday, January 6, 1920. Sidis completes The Animate and the Inanimate, and then waits five years to publish it (see below.)]
"The Secret Of Sound Sleep" by Boris Sidis M.D., Ph.D. American Monthly, Dec. 1922, p.36 --------------------------------------------------- This article, one of more than 50, was his last.
Dr. Boris Sidis Dies Suddenly Portsmouth [NH] Herald, Oct. 25, 1923
Dr. Boris Sidis Dies New York Times, Oct. 25, 1923, p.19
Precocity Doesn't Wear Well New York Times, Jan. 11, 1924, p.16 ----------------------------------------------------- More 'burnout' myth.
Sidis Inherits $4000, May 23, 1924 ----------------------------------------------------
Sidis, W. J., The Animate and the Inanimate. (Boston: Badger, 1925). ---------------------------------------------------------------- He begins the first chapter of this earthshaking work with a remarkable discovery of what might be called the first law of physical laws, modestly presented:
The only physical law that does not meet the reversibility requirement is the second law of thermodynamics. And therein lies a great secret:
His discovery has immense
ramifications for the way we
Sidis, W. J. Notes on the Collection of Transfers by Frank Folupa (pseud.) Phila.: Dorrance, 1926 From Introduction:
As usual, Sidis is modest about the importance of his work. The book preserves for posterity a complete record of the US trolley-car system of the 1920s. The press, apparently without exception, saw it as further evidence of his 'burnout'. But Notes on the Collection of Transfers is taxonomy Aristotelian in breadth and detail.
The transfers were collected while he was "riding his hobby" in order to research the Tribes and the States at the local level.
Many suggestions have been made re his pseudonym. Perhaps Frank = French, and Folupa = fallu pas (wasn't practical or necessary).
Russia Has Opportunities: Dr. [Sarah] Sidis Recently Returned from Foreign Land Says Wages of People High, Art Appreciated, But Bread Is Scarcity Manchester [NH] Union, March 4, 1929
[Fragment from Ripley's Believe Or Not]
US Patent No. 1,718,314 , June 25,
1929
Dare anyone dream of the royalties for this invention? Better yet, dare anyone dream of inventing such a device after so many great mathematicians had failed to do so?
Sidis, W. J. The Orarch A newsletter on liberty and related subjects. Orarchy = limited government, as opposed to anarchy = no government. Sidis was by this time a 'libertarian', maybe the first to use the term. He may be hinting at this in: The Modern Gray Champion.
Sidis, W. J., The Tribes and the States by John W. Shattuck (pseud.), ca. 1932. Unpub. ms. 620 pages.
At the heart of this extraordinary history of North America from prehistoric times is Sidis's Continuity Theory:
To this day, twenty-six American states
retain their Native-American
Out Today: Harvard Prodigy New York World Telegram, Aug. 13, 1937, p.15 -------------------------------------------- Reports publication of infamous New Yorker article.
"Where Are They Now?
April Fool"
by Jared L. Manley
Sidis, W. J., Atlantis ca. 1937. Unpub. ms. missing.
No Privacy for Prodigy New York Times, Dec. 17, 1941, p.21 ------------------------------------------------------ Reports US Supreme Court decision on Sidis's case against The New Yorker magazine for having violated his rights to privacy in its 1937 article. He had not assented to an interview. Sidis personally funded his case.
Federal Reporter, 1941, #113, 807-811 ------------------------------------------------------- In a 5 - 4 opinion, hence by the vote of a single
What's New In Town, Jan. 3, 1941 - Sept. 18, 1942 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 89 weekly columns on interesting and little known facts about Boston and its history. First week was titled "Strange But True." (Marmor was Boris's mother's maiden name.)
Peridromophily and Mr. Willie Sidis The Evening Sun (Baltimore), Jan. 8, 1943 ------------------------------------------------------------- "Peridromophily" was Sidis's name for his hobby of collecting trolley-car transfers.
One Time Child Prodigy Found Destitute Here Boston Traveler, July 14, 1944, p. 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------ He was far from destitute. He supported himself with full-time jobs and lived in an apartment on Canton St. a working-class section of Boston. He died with no debt and had $625 of earned money in his bank account, which would equal $7000 today. Documents Inflation Calculator
Hub Prodigy Who Held Clerk's Job Dies Penniless Boston Traveler, July 17, 1944 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Most Bostonians considered their lovely city to be the Hub of the Universe then. Perhaps it was.
Landlady Tells How Sidis Was Stricken Boston Traveler, July 17, 1944
Sidis A "Wonder" In Childhood Dies New York Times, July 18, 1944. p. 21
Sidis Once Prodigy Dies In Hospital In Obscurity Boston Herald, July 18, 1944 --------------------------------------------------------------- Obscurity? His death after a lifetime of press attention was international news.
The Hidden Genius New York Times, July 19, 1944, p.18 --------------------------------------------------- 'Burnout' one more time.
"Sidis' Boyhood Seen Case of All Work and No Play" by Alice Burke Boston Traveler, July 19, 1944
"Sidis Was Victim Of An Experiment" by Shirley S. Smith. Boston Traveler, July 19, 1944
"What Happened To One Child Prodigy" by Ruth Reynolds New York Sunday News, July 23, 1944, 38-41; "Taught Son Everything But How To Live" by Ruth Reynolds Boston Sunday Post, August 6, 1944 ----------------------------------------------------------- Same article, different titles.
Prodigious Failure Time, July 31, 1944, #44, p.60 -------------------------------------------- To title an obituary of any human being
Burned Out Prodigy Newsweek, July 31, 1944, #24, 77-78
"William James Sidis" by Hallowell Bowser Saturday Review, July, 1944
by Abraham Sperling, Ph.D. NY: F. Fell, Inc., 1946, 332-339. ------------------------------------------- The City College of New York professor was the first Sidis biographer. He visited Sidis's family and friends and tells of having seen a dozen manuscripts written by Sidis. See also Atlantis Manuscript Philology & Anthropology Mss.
In a letter to Julius Eichel, who had been a friend of Sidis for more than 20 years, Sperling wrote,
Amen to that!
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![Brookline [MA] Chronicle, Mar. 7, 1908](brooklinechronicle1908.jpg){kind=link}
