William Bauchop Wilson

William Wilson, story by Poe, published in 1839 and collected in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840). The description of school life in England is partly autobiographical.

The central figure is a willful, passionate youth, who at Dr. Bransby's boarding school leads all his companions except one, a boy of his own age and appearance who bears the same name of William Wilson. This double maintains an easy superiority, which frightens Wilson, and haunts him by constant patronage and protection, noticed only by Wilson himself, whose sense of persecution increases until he flees from the school. He goes to Eton and Oxford, and then travels about Europe, following a career of extravagant indulgence, and becoming degenerate and vicious. At critical times his double invariably appears to warn him or destroy his power over others. Finally at Rome, when the double appears to prevent his planned seduction of the Duchess Di Broglio, Wilson is infuriated, engages the other in a sword fight, and murders him. As the double lies dying, he tells Wilson: “You have conquered …Yet henceforward art thou also dead…. In me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”

William Bauchop Wilson 1862-1934, American labor leader, U.S. Secretary of Labor (1913-21), b. Blantyre, Scotland. Coming as a child to the United States in 1870, he worked in Pennsylvania coal mines after 1871 and helped organize (1890) the United Mine Workers of America. He was (1900-1908) secretary-treasurer of the labor union and, as a Democrat, served (1907-13) in the House of Representatives. As chairman (1912-13) of the House Labor Committee, he helped draft the bill creating the Dept. of Labor. The first Secretary of Labor in U.S. history, William B. Wilson organized the department and introduced machinery for mediation in labor disputes.

Bibliography: See R. W. Babson, W. B. Wilson and the Department of Labor (1919).

Morgan, WilliamWilson (1906–94)Americanastronomer. With Philip Childs Keenan (1908–2000) he developed the Morgan–Keenan classification of stellar spectra, set out in An Atlas of Stellar Spectra (1943). Morgan and Keenan devised a series of standard spectra against which a star's spectrum may be identified by visual comparison to yield its mass and luminosity (and hence distance). In 1951, Morgan inferred the spiral structure of the Galaxy from the distribution of O- and B-type stars near the galactic equator. In 1953 he helped to originate the system of UBV photometry by which a star's colour index may be determined (see Johnson Photometry). He also developed classification systems for galaxies and clusters of galaxies (see Morgan's Classification; Bautz–Morgan class).