Jack Kerouac

(1922 - 1969)

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, Jack Kerouac attended Columbia University during the 1940s, where he became friends with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Relying on his ample notes, Kerouac in 1951 wrote On the Road on a 120-foot scroll during a three-week Benzedrine high. Ginsberg called his style “spontaneous bop prosody,” and novelist Robert Stone recalled, “Kerouac was eloquent on what jerkabouts we were.”