The Atlantic recently asked ten historians to compose their own lists of the 100 most influential Americans. The Atlantic reported these findings and more can be found from http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200612/influentials-main.
Created by mad14 on May 14, 2008
Last updated: 04/21/10 at 05:47 PM
The Rockefeller of the Information Age, in business and philanthropy alike.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/bio.mspx
The king of rock and roll. Enough said.
http://www.elvis.com/
He made the cars we drive safer; thirty years later, he made George W. Bush the president.
http://www.nader.org/
His dream of racial equality is still elusive, but no one did more to make it real.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html
He codiscovered DNA’s double helix, revealing the code of life to scientists and entrepreneurs alike.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/watson-bio.html
She spoke to the discontent of housewives everywhere—and inspired a revolution in gender roles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Friedan
He broke baseball’s color barrier and embodied integration’s promise.
http://www.jackierobinson.com/
He promised us “Every Day Low Prices,” and we took him up on the offer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton
He broke the New Deal majority, and then broke his presidency on a scandal that still haunts America.
http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/nixon
The amiable architect of both the conservative realignment and the Cold War’s end.
http://www.ronaldreagan.com/
His brilliance gave us civil-rights laws; his stubbornness gave us Vietnam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson
As a lawyer and a Supreme Court justice, he was the legal architect of the civil-rights revolution.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm
The author of Silent Spring was godmother to the environmental movement.
http://www.rachelcarson.org/
The father of the atomic bomb and the regretful midwife of the nuclear era.
http://www.nap.edu/html/biomems/joppenheimer.html
With a single book—and a singular approach—he changed American parenting.
http://www.drspock.com/about/drbenjaminspock/0,1781,,00.html
As the creator of Tom Joad, he chronicled Depression-era misery.
http://www.steinbeck.org/MainFrame.html
With Coming of Age in Samoa, she made anthropology relevant—and controversial.
http://www.interculturalstudies.org/Mead/biography.html
The quintessential entertainer-entrepreneur, he wielded unmatched influence over our childhood.
http://www.justdisney.com/walt_disney/
He asked Americans what they thought, and the politicians listened.
http://www.gallup.com/corporate/21364/george-gallup-19011984.aspx
A giant of physics, he helped develop quantum theory and was instrumental in building the atomic bomb.
http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/fermi.html
His spare defined American modernism, and his life made machismo a cliché.
http://www.timelesshemingway.com/
The most gifted chronicler of America’s tormented and fascinating South.
http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/faulkner_william/
He saved the national pastime in the wake of the Black Sox scandal—and permanently linked sports and celebrity.
http://www.baberuth.com/flash/about/biograph.html
His Supreme Court transformed American society and bequeathed to us the culture wars.
http://www.michaelariens.com/ConLaw/justices/warren.htm
He won a war and two elections, and made everybody like Ike.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/de34.html
The last man who could swing an election with a newspaper column.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
An accidental president, this machine politician ushered in the Atomic Age and then the Cold War.
http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/truman
He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and then he proved it.
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/fdrbio.html
As a general, he organized the American effort in World War II; as a statesman, he rebuilt Western Europe.
http://www.marshallfoundation.org/
The ardent champion of birth control—and of the sexual freedom that came with it.
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_margaret_sanger.htm
A producer for forty years, he was the first great Hollywood mogul.
http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/samuel-goldwyn_intro.htm
His greatest scientific work was done in Europe, but his humanity earned him undying fame in America.
http://www.westegg.com/einstein/
They got us all off the ground.
http://www.first-to-fly.com/History/Wright%20Story/wright%20story.htm
One of America’s great intellectuals, he made the “problem of the color line” his life’s work.
http://www.webdubois.org/
America’s most significant architect, he was the archetype of the visionary artist at odds with capitalism.
http://www.franklloydwright.org/
He gave us the assembly line and the Model T, and sparked America’s love affair with the automobile.
http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/
The press baron who perfected yellow journalism and helped start the Spanish-American War.
http://www.hearstfdn.org/
The founder of Hull House, she became the secular saint of social work.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams-bio.html
“The Great Commoner” lost three presidential elections, but his populism transformed the country.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h805.html
He sought to make the public school a training ground for democratic life.
http://dewey.pragmatism.org/
Whether busting trusts or building canals, he embodied the “strenuous life” and blazed a trail for twentieth-century America.
http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/
He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ww28.html
The father of architectural modernism, he shaped the defining American building: the skyscraper.
http://www.geocities.com/soho/1469/sullivan.html
As an educator and a champion of self-help, he tried to lead black America up from slavery.
http://www.ushistory.net/washington.html
The founder of Kodak democratized photography with his handy rolls of film.
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/kodakHistory/eastmanTheMan.shtml
The country’s greatest labor organizer, he made the golden age of unions possible.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1747.html
By inventing the telephone, he opened the age of telecommunications and shrank the world.
http://www.alexandergrahambell.org/
It wasn’t just the lightbulb; the Wizard of Menlo Park was the most prolific inventor in American history.
http://www.thomasedison.com/
The mind behind Pragmatism, America’s most important philosophical school.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/
As the founding publisher of The New York Herald, he invented the modern American newspaper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gordon_Bennett,_Jr.
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