The Atlantic - 100 Most Influential Figures in American History

[BeBop]

...and Joseph Smith?!

1 Abraham Lincoln

He saved the Union, freed the slaves, and presided over America’s second founding.

2 George Washington

He made the United States possible—not only by defeating a king, but by declining to become one himself.

3 Thomas Jefferson

The author of the five most important words in American history: “All men are created equal.”

4 Franklin Delano Roosevelt

He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and then he proved it.

5 Alexander Hamilton

Soldier, banker, and political scientist, he set in motion an agrarian nation’s transformation into an industrial power.

6 Benjamin Franklin

The Founder-of-all-trades— scientist, printer, writer, diplomat, inventor, and more; like his country, he contained multitudes.

7 John Marshall

The defining chief justice, he established the Supreme Court as the equal of the other two federal branches.

8 Martin Luther King Jr.

His dream of racial equality is still elusive, but no one did more to make it real.

9 Thomas Edison

It wasn’t just the lightbulb; the Wizard of Menlo Park was the most prolific inventor in American history.

10 Woodrow Wilson

He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy.

11 John D. Rockefeller

The man behind Standard Oil set the mold for our tycoons—first by making money, then by giving it away.

12 Ulysses S. Grant

He was a poor president, but he was the general Lincoln needed; he also wrote the greatest political memoir in American history.

13 James Madison

He fathered the Constitution and wrote the Bill of Rights.

14 Henry Ford

He gave us the assembly line and the Model T, and sparked America’s love affair with the automobile.

15 Theodore Roosevelt

Whether busting trusts or building canals, he embodied the “strenuous life” and blazed a trail for twentieth-century America.

16 Mark Twain

Author of our national epic, he was the most unsentimental observer of our national life.

17 Ronald Reagan

The amiable architect of both the conservative realignment and the Cold War’s end.

18 Andrew Jackson

The first great populist: he found America a republic and left it a democracy.

19 Thomas Paine

The voice of the American Revolution, and our first great radical.

20 Andrew Carnegie

The original self-made man forged America’s industrial might and became one of the nation’s greatest philanthropists.

21 Harry Truman

An accidental president, this machine politician ushered in the Atomic Age and then the Cold War.

22 Walt Whitman

He sang of America and shaped the country’s conception of itself.

23 Wright Brothers

They got us all off the ground.

24 Alexander Graham Bell

By inventing the telephone, he opened the age of telecommunications and shrank the world.

25 John Adams

His leadership made the American Revolution possible; his devotion to republicanism made it succeed.

26 Walt Disney

The quintessential entertainer-entrepreneur, he wielded unmatched influence over our childhood.

27 Eli Whitney

His gin made cotton king and sustained an empire for slavery.

28 Dwight Eisenhower

He won a war and two elections, and made everybody like Ike.

29 Earl Warren

His Supreme Court transformed American society and bequeathed to us the culture wars.

30 Elizabeth Cady Stanton

One of the first great American feminists, she fought for social reform and women’s right to vote.

31 Henry Clay

One of America’s greatest legislators and orators, he forged compromises that held off civil war for decades.

32 Albert Einstein

His greatest scientific work was done in Europe, but his humanity earned him undying fame in America.

33 Ralph Waldo Emerson

The bard of individualism, he relied on himself—and told us all to do the same.

34 Jonas Salk

His vaccine for polio eradicated one of the world’s worst plagues.

35 Jackie Robinson

He broke baseball’s color barrier and embodied integration’s promise.

36 William Jennings Bryan

“The Great Commoner” lost three presidential elections, but his populism transformed the country.

37 J. P. Morgan

The great financier and banker was the prototype for all the Wall Street barons who followed.

38 Susan B. Anthony

She was the country’s most eloquent voice for women’s equality under the law.

39 Rachel Carson

The author of Silent Spring was godmother to the environmental movement.

40 John Dewey

He sought to make the public school a training ground for democratic life.

41 Harriet Beecher Stowe

Her Uncle Tom’s Cabin inspired a generation of abolitionists and set the stage for civil war.

42 Eleanor Roosevelt

She used the first lady’s office and the mass media to become “first lady of the world.”

43 W. E. B. DuBois

One of America’s great intellectuals, he made the “problem of the color line” his life’s work.

44 Lyndon Baines Johnson

His brilliance gave us civil-rights laws; his stubbornness gave us Vietnam.

45 Samuel F. B. Morse

Before the Internet, there was Morse code.

46 William Lloyd Garrison

Through his newspaper, The Liberator, he became the voice of abolition.

47 Frederick Douglass

After escaping from slavery, he pricked the nation’s conscience with an eloquent accounting of its crimes.

48 Robert Oppenheimer

The father of the atomic bomb and the regretful midwife of the nuclear era.

49 Frederick Law Olmsted

The genius behind New York’s Central Park, he inspired the greening of America’s cities.

50 James K. Polk

This one-term president’s Mexican War landgrab gave us California, Texas, and the Southwest.

51 Margaret Sanger

The ardent champion of birth control—and of the sexual freedom that came with it.

52 Joseph Smith

The founder of Mormonism, America’s most famous homegrown faith.

53 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Known as “The Great Dissenter,” he wrote Supreme Court opinions that continue to shape American jurisprudence.

54 Bill Gates

The Rockefeller of the Information Age, in business and philanthropy alike.

55 John Quincy Adams

The Monroe Doctrine’s real author, he set nineteenth-century America’s diplomatic course.

56 Horace Mann

His tireless advocacy of universal public schooling earned him the title “The Father of American Education.”

57 Robert E. Lee

He was a good general but a better symbol, embodying conciliation in defeat.

58 John C. Calhoun

The voice of the antebellum South, he was slavery’s most ardent defender.

59 Louis Sullivan

The father of architectural modernism, he shaped the defining American building: the skyscraper.

60 William Faulkner

The most gifted chronicler of America’s tormented and fascinating South.

61 Samuel Gompers

The country’s greatest labor organizer, he made the golden age of unions possible.

62 William James

The mind behind Pragmatism, America’s most important philosophical school.

63 George Marshall

As a general, he organized the American effort in World War II; as a statesman, he rebuilt Western Europe.

64 Jane Addams

The founder of Hull House, she became the secular saint of social work.

65 Henry David Thoreau

The original American dropout, he has inspired seekers of authenticity for 150 years.

66 Elvis Presley

The king of rock and roll. Enough said.

67 P. T. Barnum

The circus impresario’s taste for spectacle paved the way for blockbuster movies and reality TV.

68 James D. Watson

He codiscovered DNA’s double helix, revealing the code of life to scientists and entrepreneurs alike.

69 James Gordon Bennett

As the founding publisher of The New York Herald, he invented the modern American newspaper.

70 Lewis and Clark

They went west to explore, and millions followed in their wake.

71 Noah Webster

He didn’t create American English, but his dictionary defined it.

72 Sam Walton

He promised us “Every Day Low Prices,” and we took him up on the offer.

73 Cyrus McCormick

His mechanical reaper spelled the end of traditional farming, and the beginning of industrial agriculture.

74 Brigham Young

What Joseph Smith founded, Young preserved, leading the Mormons to their promised land.

75 George Herman “Babe” Ruth

He saved the national pastime in the wake of the Black Sox scandal—and permanently linked sports and celebrity.

76 Frank Lloyd Wright

America’s most significant architect, he was the archetype of the visionary artist at odds with capitalism.

77 Betty Friedan

She spoke to the discontent of housewives everywhere—and inspired a revolution in gender roles.

78 John Brown

Whether a hero, a fanatic, or both, he provided the spark for the Civil War.

79 Louis Armstrong

His talent and charisma took jazz from the cathouses of Storyville to Broadway, television, and beyond.

80 William Randolph Hearst

The press baron who perfected yellow journalism and helped start the Spanish-American War.

81 Margaret Mead

With Coming of Age in Samoa, she made anthropology relevant—and controversial.

82 George Gallup

He asked Americans what they thought, and the politicians listened.

83 James Fenimore Cooper

The novels are unreadable, but he was the first great mythologizer of the frontier.

84 Thurgood Marshall

As a lawyer and a Supreme Court justice, he was the legal architect of the civil-rights revolution.

85 Ernest Hemingway

His spare style defined American modernism, and his life made machismo a cliché.

86 Mary Baker Eddy

She got off her sickbed and founded Christian Science, which promised spiritual healing to all.

87 Benjamin Spock

With a single book—and a singular approach—he changed American parenting.

88 Enrico Fermi

A giant of physics, he helped develop quantum theory and was instrumental in building the atomic bomb.

89 Walter Lippmann

The last man who could swing an election with a newspaper column.

90 Jonathan Edwards

Forget the fire and brimstone: his subtle eloquence made him the country’s most influential theologian.

91 Lyman Beecher

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s clergyman father earned fame as an abolitionist and an evangelist.

92 John Steinbeck

As the creator of Tom Joad, he chronicled Depression-era misery.

93 Nat Turner

He was the most successful rebel slave; his specter would stalk the white South for a century.

94 George Eastman

The founder of Kodak democratized photography with his handy rolls of film.

95 Sam Goldwyn

A producer for forty years, he was the first great Hollywood mogul.

96 Ralph Nader

He made the cars we drive safer; thirty years later, he made George W. Bush the president.

97 Stephen Foster

America’s first great songwriter, he brought us “O! Susanna” and “My Old Kentucky Home.”

98 Booker T. Washington

As an educator and a champion of self-help, he tried to lead black America up from slavery.

99 Richard Nixon

He broke the New Deal majority, and then broke his presidency on a scandal that still haunts America.

100 Herman Melville

Moby Dick was a flop at the time, but Melville is remembered as the American Shakespeare.

Edited November 21, 2006 by BeBop

[BeBop]

Ah, and Most Influential Musicians...

Influential Musicians

by Terry Teachout Terry Teachout

.....

LOUIS ARMSTRONG

(1901–1971)

“Satchmo” (as he loved to be called) didn’t invent jazz, but it might have sounded unimaginably different without him. The bastard son of a sometime prostitute, Armstrong learned to play cornet in a New Orleans home for “colored waifs.” Having mastered the ensemble style of early jazz, he reshaped it in his own expansive image, shifting the emphasis from group improvisation to the virtuoso solo. No less significant were his genial, gravel-voiced vocals, which laid the foundation for all subsequent pop singing. Bing Crosby called him “the beginning and end of music in America.”

GEORGE GERSHWIN

(1898–1937)

Of all the inspired artists who created what is now called the Great American Songbook, it was Gershwin who did the most to infuse it with the quintessentially American sounds of ragtime and jazz. Working in tandem with his brother and lyricist Ira, he galvanized Broadway (and, later, Hollywood) with soon-to-be-standards like “I Got Rhythm” and “Someone to Watch Over Me.” At the same time, he produced a series of pop-flavored concert works, starting with Rhapsody in Blue, in which he pioneered the crossover genre, and in Porgy and Bess he tore down the wall that had separated opera from musical comedy.

AARON COPLAND

(1900–1990)

Before Copland came along, American classical musicians were struggling to forge their own distinctive stylistic identity. Attracted by the spare lucidity of Igor Stravinsky’s neoclassicism, the open-eared experimental approach of Charles Ives, and the off-center rhythms of jazz, Copland turned his back on nineteenth-century European Romanticism and replaced it with a spaciously lyrical, rhythmically vital style that at once evoked the hum and buzz of urban life and the wide-open expanses of the prairie. In such ballet scores as Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring, he all but single-handedly invented the sound of modern American classical music.

ELVIS PRESLEY

(1935–1977)

By fusing black rhythm and blues with white country (his first single had an R&B song on one side and a bluegrass tune on the other), Presley became the central figure in the great transformation that replaced Gershwin-style pop songs with rock and roll as the lingua franca of American popular music. Though he degenerated over time into the drug-sodden, chronically obese “fat Elvis” of countless cruel jokes, his sex-charged TV appearances and films of the ’50s made him the No. 1 teen idol of the buttoned-down Eisenhower era, and he set a benchmark for renown that today’s rock stars still strive to surpass.

BOB DYLAN

(1941)

American folk music was enjoying a short-lived spurt of popularity in the early 1960s when Dylan first emerged as a top protest singer with “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Then he stunned his contemporaries by unexpectedly retrofitting himself as a hard-charging electric rocker whose lyrics were complex and ambiguous to a degree previously unknown in American popular song. Nor was this the only stylistic rabbit Dylan pulled out of his hat: he later embraced country music on his albums John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline. No one has done more to define the place of the singer-songwriter in contemporary pop.

[PHILLYQ]

No Miles or Duke, 'Trane, no Hendrix?!

Edited November 21, 2006 by PHILLYQ

[BeBop]

...or Bird or Duke?

[Jazzmoose]

10 Woodrow Wilson

He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy.

...and made institutional racism safe for the 20th century. Definitely influential. Unfortunately.

[Randy Twizzle]

10 Woodrow Wilson

He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy.

...and made institutional racism safe for the 20th century. Definitely influential. Unfortunately.

Hey nobody's perfect... My favorite fact about Woodrow Wilson after his stroke and while still in office:

He got it into his mind that any car that passed his own was going dangerously fast, although at his orders the chauffeur rarely went faster than fifteen or twenty miles an hour. When a car went by he would order that the Secret Service vehicle overtake it and bring back the driver for questioning.

The Secret Service would pursue half-heartedly but allow the speeder to escape.

He brooded over this and wrote to Attorney General [A. Mitchell] Palmer asking if the Presidency carried with it the powers of a justice of the peace; if it did, he told his people, he was going to make sure the speeders were caught and himself try their cases there by the roadside. (The Secret Service men desperately killed the plan by saying to him that the idea was beneath his dignity.)

[Chuck Nessa]

...and Joseph Smith?!

One of the best trumpet players in the Henderson band.

[BruceH]

No Bernard Herrmann?

Actually, aside from Joseph Smith, the the list was predictable and boring as hell.

[Brownian Motion]

No Bernard Herrmann?

Actually, aside from Joseph Smith, the the list was predictable and boring as hell.

Walt Disney ranked ahead of Dwight Eisenhower? Stephen Foster ranked ahead of Richard Nixon? And if you include Frank Lloyd Wright, how can you not also include Andy Warhol?