The Greatest Americans of History

A list of “the greatest Americans of history" was printed by Time magazine in 2005, probably the only time Alexander Hamilton and Tom Hanks were ever mentioned in the same article. I created this list -- and spent a considerable amount of time on it, obviously -- because I wanted to find out who Time missed. Almost everybody, it turned out. I'm sure anyone who reads this will say I left out some important people too, but I tried to be thorough -- I surveyed U.S. history from its beginning to the present and included the most significant figures in every field I could think of, only excluding those who weren't born in what is now the United States. That meant leaving out a lot of famous "Americans," especially in the early period when many explorers, settlers, entrepreneurs, administrators, and craftsmen came from Britain and Europe: Marquette and Joliet, John Smith, John Winthrop, William Penn, William Randolph, William Berkeley, Alexander Spotswood, Elizabeth Pinckney, Adriaen van der Donck, Junipero Serra, Sieur de Bienville, some of the "Founders" (like Hamilton and Wilson) and others more obscure. It also knocked out important names from the 19th century (L'Enfant, Samuel Slater, Stephen Girard, DuPont, Carnegie, Alexander G. Bell, John Sutter, John Muir, John Roebling, Jacob Riis, etc.) and early 20th century (Alexis Carrel, Michelson, of course Einstein and a bunch more), when immigrants fled poverty and political conditions in Europe and elsewhere in one of the greatest brain drains in history. (The majority of these immigrants came to New York, which is one reason why forty people on this list were born in NYC, while other big cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia only produced a handful.) The relatively small number of women that show up on lists like this is a recurrent problem of history -- the contributions of women are often invisible in the historical record. Another somewhat different problem is that social discrimination kept members of certain groups (especially African-Americans and Jewish immigrants) from having as much influence as they should have. This discrimination has lessened over time and most ethnic groups have at least limited representation on this list.

1. Thomas Edison (1847-1931, Milan, OH). There were a lot of notable 19th and 20th-century inventors and industrialists, but Edison was prolific enough (the phonograph, light bulb, film camera, etc.) to stand above them. Edison is also important for his promotion of electric power, and the infrastructure to distribute it, and for his creation of the prototypical research laboratory. Rival George Westinghouse was right about alternating current, however (see #17). Many notable engineers and scientists worked for Edison, such as scientist Arthur Kennelly (not born in the U.S.), engineer Thomas Murray (1860-1929, Albany, NY) and inventors such as Frank Sprague (1857-1934, Milford, CT), early filmmaker Edwin S. Porter (1870-1941, Connellsville, PA), Edward Acheson (1856-1931, Washington, PA) and Lewis Latimer (1843-1928, Chelsea, MA).

2. Wilbur Wright (1867-1912, Henry County, IN) and Orville Wright (1871-1948, Dayton, OH). Great do-it-yourselfers who designed all aspects of the planes they flew, the Wright brothers deserve the credit they have gotten for powered flight.

3. George Washington (1732-1799, Westmoreland County, VA). The first U.S. president resisted the temptation to add powers to his office and established the model for subsequent leaders of democratic republics to follow. Washington focused on building political institutions; he balanced political factions and avoided international disputes.

4. Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839-1903, New Haven, CT). Physicist-mathematician Gibbs developed important concepts of thermodynamics, including free energy, chemical potential, and thermodynamic equilibrium; Gibbs also developed vector analysis.

5. Crawford Long (1815-1878, Danielsville, GA), William E. Clarke and others were among the first practitioners to demonstrate the use of ether for anesthesia. The practice was popularized by William T. G. Morton (1819-1868, Charlton, MA), who followed the suggestion of chemist Charles T. Jackson (1805-1880, Plymouth, MA) -- a man of unreliable veracity who also claimed to have suggested the idea for the telegraph to Samuel Morse (see #40). Morton, who selfishly tried to take full credit for inventing anesthesia, perhaps deserves some credit for promoting it.

6. Edwin Hubble (1889-1953, Marshfield, MO). Astronomer who described the nature of galaxies and the expansion of the universe, the beginning of modern cosmology. The first discovery of galactic redshifts and interpretation of their significance was made by astronomer Vesto Slipher (1875-1969, Mulberry, IN).

7. James Madison (1750-1836, Port Conway, VA). Statesman, political thinker and (unsuccessful) president. With Alexander Hamilton, Madison was co-author of the Federalist and one of the primary influences on the Constitution and the country's early development. The two men were in the right place and time to ensure that the best social and political institutions of England were copied and improved in the United States. (Hamilton was born in the West Indies and is technically ineligible for this list, but it's impossible not to mention him.)

8. John Bardeen (1908-1991, Madison, WI). Physicist; co-inventor of the transistor with William Shockley and Walter Brattain (who were not born in the U.S.). Bardeen also developed the theoretical explanation of superconductivity, working with Leon N. Cooper (1930-, New York, NY) and John Schrieffer (1931-, Oak Park, IL).

9. Joseph Henry (1797-1878, Albany, NY) improved the electromagnet (invented by British scientist William Sturgeon), an all-important invention whose time had come (but which would have been developed by others if they had not gotten it done). Henry also discovered electromagnetic induction, which was independently discovered by Faraday, built an electromagnetic motor, and importantly, developed the electric relay which allowed many future applications of electricity. Thomas Davenport (1802-1851, Williamstown, VT) may have been the first to invent an electric motor, but never found a market for it.

10. Herman Hollerith (1860-1929, Buffalo, NY). One of many whose innovations led to the modern computer. Hollerith's computing machine was the first useful mechanical calculator -- less of a conceptual leap than the "difference engine" of Charles Babbage, but a practical device that was actually used.

11. Scott Joplin (1868-1917, Cass County, TX), composer. W. C. Handy (1873-1958, Florence, AL), bandleader, songwriter. Gertrude "Ma" Pridgett Rainey, (1886-1939, Columbus, GA), singer, musician. Joplin was among the first composers to combine European instrumental music and African-American blues, beginning the long transformation of vernacular music into an art form competing with (and unfortunately, displacing) classical music. The inventors of blues music are unknown, but composers like Handy and especially performers like Rainey popularized blues (or at least, one of several musical forms now called blues) and started the amazing century-long evolution from folk blues to ragtime, jazz, gospel and rock, influencing parallel developments in Latin America (tango, samba, merengue) along the way.

12. Robert Goddard (1882-1945, Worcester, MA). Goddard developed the first successful liquid-fuel rockets and is solely responsible for proving the concept, though others (notably adopted-American Wernher von Braun) built the rockets that took the U.S. to the Moon and inspired the world.

13. Lee de Forest (1873-1961, Council Bluffs, IA). Inventor of the triode valve (vacuum tube), the first successful electronic amplifier used in the formative years of radios and radar detection. De Forest also invented sound for motion pictures.

14. Edward Lorenz (1917-, West Haven, CT). Meteorologist whose discoveries led to the development of chaos theory.

15. John Wesley Hyatt (1837-1920, Starkey, NY). Hyatt developed celluloid, the first commercially important plastic (discovered by the British chemist Alexander Parkes), and helped to launch the plastics industry.

16. Charles Goodyear (1800-1860, New Haven, CT). Inventor; building on the work of Nathaniel Hayward (1808-1865, Easton, MA) Goodyear discovered vulcanization, making rubber practical and useful.

17. George Westinghouse (1846-1914; Central Bridge, NY). Second only to Edison as an inventor, Westinghouse developed natural gas and power transmission systems and the air brake, among many other things. Notable engineers worked under him such as Benjamin Lamme (1864-1924, Springfield, OH).

18. Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945, Lexington, KY) and Alfred Sturtevant (1891-1970, Jacksonville, IL). Biologists who led pioneer investigations of genetics and invented techniques of genetic mapping.  Morgan's work confirmed the earlier demonstration of Walter Sutton (1877-1916, Utica, NY) that chromosomes are the carriers of genes.

19. Cyrus McCormick (1809-1884, Rockbridge County, VA) and Obed Hussey (1792-1960, ME). Inventors who manufactured the first reaping machines and other inventions for farming applications, encouraging the transition of the labor force from agrarian to industrial jobs.

20. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, Boston, MA). Statesman, writer, inventor, and publisher. Franklin was a model industrial citizen and Renaissance man who demonstrated the nature of lightning (somehow without killing himself), wrote one of the first autobiographies, and invented or improved bifocals and the Franklin stove. But he's most famous for his participation in U.S. independence; his stature gave the colonies credibility and his diplomacy wooed European aid.

21. Murray Gell-Mann (1929-, New York, NY). Physicist; classified subatomic particles with predictive success; predicted the existence of quarks and developed quantum theory of the strong nuclear force.

22. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) (1835-1910, Florida, MO). One of the first and best (though nihilistic) modern writers, and one of the most effective users of humor, satire and vernacular language in literature. Twain mastered the skillful colloquial humor made famous by Charles F. Browne (Artemus Ward) (1834-1867, Waterford, ME) and others, and combined it with a broader worldview. Huck Finn is one of the world's great novels.

23. Claude Shannon (1888-1965, Petoskey, MI). Polymath who invented information theory and digital computer processing.

24. Eugene Odum (1913-2002, Newport, NH). Biologist; among the noteworthy scientists who popularized ecology, a new but promising science. His brother, Howard T. Odum (1924-2002, Chapel Hill, NC), pioneered theoretical concepts of ecosystem ecology and energetics.

25. Eli Whitney (1765-1825, Westborough, MA). Inventor; Whitney developed the cotton gin, greatly increasing the Southern output of cotton. This had the unfortunate short-term consequence of increasing demand for slave labor, but the evolution of labor and technology ultimately hastened the demise of slavery. Whitney also pioneered manufacture of interchangeable parts (for guns).

26. Robert Fulton (1765-1815, Lancaster County, PA) and John Stevens (1749-1838, New York, NY). Rival inventors who built and operated the first commercially successful steamboats in the U.S. (with the backing of Robert Livingston), shortly after the success of Patrick Miller and William Symington in Scotland. John Fitch (1743-1798, Windsor, CT) built a working steamboat, following the example of manufacturer (and patriot) William Henry (1729-1786, Chester County, PA). But unlike Fulton, Fitch was unsuccessful in establishing his business.

27. Charles Martin Hall (1863-1914, Thompson, OH). Chemist; developed the first commercially viable method for producing aluminum, simultaneously developed by French inventor Paul Heroult.

28. Henry Ford (1863-1947, Dearborn, MI). Ford is one of the most influential Americans, as his affordable automobiles have transformed the economy and landscape, for better and worse. Ford's most important contribution was his use of assembly-line manufacturing, a revolution in industrial efficiency pioneered by rival auto maker and inventor Ransom E. Olds (1864-1950, Geneva, OH) and Ford. Later an unimpressive meddler in politics, Ford promoted anti-Semitism and pacifism.

29. Edwin Drake (1819-1880, Greenville, NY) drilled and improved the first successful oil wells in the United States with the direction of George Bissell (1821-1884, Hanover, NH), helping to launch the worldwide exploitation of petroleum.

30. U.S. architecture began with British models and added new materials and some European influences. Though derivative, it produced some of the world's best built landscapes: the towns of New England, the imposing Classical Revival houses of the antebellum South, and the eclectic architecture of the early industrial cities. Many notable American houses and buildings were not built by name architects, but by owners or local builders (some from England or elsewhere) whose names are known only to historians. Exceptions include Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844, Boston, MA), one of the first professional architects in the U.S., who contributed to the New England architectural tradition already notable for its charm, simplicity, and practicality. Samuel McIntire (1757-1811, Salem, MA) was a justly admired New England architect and decorative craftsman whose houses were more elegant (but no more pleasant) than earlier buildings. Asher Benjamin (1773-1845, Greenfield, MA), Alexander Jackson Downing (1815-1852, Newburgh, NY) and other architect-builders published influential pattern books which were widely copied. But the professional architect was a minor player until the late 19th century, and by the time academics and professional architects began their quest for an independent American style, much of the best architecture was already built. The most important U.S. buildings are not the works of Gropius or Le Corbusier, who took architecture in directions few wanted to go. Residences, public buildings and monuments in Washington, Charleston, Natchez, New Orleans, New England and San Francisco draw tourists, but not too many people travel to see modernist buildings, and there's a reason for that.

31. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (1753-1814, Woburn, MA). Colorful character who spent time as a British spy and Bavarian count before his prominent career as a scientist; he demonstrated the nature of heat.

32. James Kent (1763-1847, Southeast, NY). Early jurist whose rulings, based on English law, influenced U.S. jurisprudence.

33. Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809, Albemarle County, VA) and William Clark (1770-1838, Caroline County, VA) explored the Louisiana Purchase and returned with a vast amount of information. They were helped for part of their expedition by interpreter and guide Sacagawea (c. 1787-1812, ID?), without whom the expedition might have failed to reach the Pacific.

34. John Deere (1804-1886, Rutland, VT) produced the commercially successful steel plow which broke the prairies in the central U.S. (a necessary evil) and created one of the great agricultural powerhouses of the world. The first steel plow was probably introduced by John Lane (1793-1857, Pittsford, NY) at about the same time. The cast-iron plow had been introduced much earlier by Charles Newbold (1764-1835, Chesterfield, NJ?) and others, and improved by Stephen McCormick (1784-1875, Auburn, VA) and Jethro Wood (1774-1834, Dartmouth, MA?), also pioneers in promoting the use of replaceable parts.

35. Jonas Salk (1914-1995, New York, NY) developed the vaccine for polio, using techniques for culturing viruses developed by pathologist Ernest Goodpasture (1886-1960, Montgomery County, TN) and bacteriologist John Enders (1897-1985, West Hartford, CT). Enders also developed other viral vaccines.

36. Francis Lowell (1775-1817, Newburyport, MA). Industrialist who launched the textile industry in New England.

37. Samuel Morse (1791-1872, Charlestown, MA). Artist-turned-inventor Morse improved the electric telegraph (first demonstrated by Baron Pavel Schilling, a Russian German, and independently developed by Brits Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke) and with Alfred Vail (1807-1859, Morristown, NJ) built infrastructure for it. It would be supplanted 50 years later by the telephone, but it’s still an important advance.

38. Vannevar Bush (1890-1974, Everett, MA). Scientist; developed mechanical and electrical analog computers which were a step in the evolution of today's computer. Bush was also a leader of what became the Manhattan Project. John Atanasoff (1903-1995, Hamilton, NY) developed the first electronic digital computer (though it was not programmable). This work led to development of the first decimal electronic computer, the ENIAC, by John Mauchly (1907-1980, Cincinnati, OH) and John Presper Eckert (1919-1995, Philadelphia, PA). Engineers led by Howard Aiken (1900-1973, Hoboken, NJ) also built computers during the same time period. The development of microelectronics would allow the birth of the modern computer.

39. Richard Feynman (1918-1988, New York, NY) and Julian Schwinger (1916-1994, New York, NY). Physicists who independently developed the modern theory of quantum electrodynamics, one of the milestones of particle physics.

40. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826, Albemarle County, VA). President, statesman, architect, writer. A radical ideologue (for the time), Jefferson was nevertheless mostly successful as president. The negotiation of the Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of U.S. territory (he was aided by diplomat Robert Livingston, who also backed Fulton, see #26 above). Jefferson's support of Lewis and Clark opened exploration of the western U.S. His hotheaded rhetoric was appropriate for the Declaration of Independence (he was out of the country when the Constitution was written, which was probably a good thing). Jefferson enacted much influential legislation in Virginia along with George Wythe (1726-1806, Elizabeth City county, VA) and others. His other achievements include essays on geography and designing important buildings which inspired neoclassical U.S. architecture.

41. Oliver Evans (1755-1819, Newport, DE). One of the most important U.S. inventors, Evans improved high-pressure steam engines and developed various steam and water-powered machines, including the automatic flour mill and grain elevator, a cording machine, and steam dredge. He also was the first to demonstrate vapor-compression refrigeration, but never built a working machine.

42. William Kelly (1811-1888, Pittsburgh, PA). Metallurgist and co-inventor of the "Bessemer process" for steel manufacturing, allowing steel to be made cheaply and in quantity.

43. John Jay (1745-1829, New York, NY). First chief justice of the Supreme Court, statesman and associate of the founders, especially Hamilton (Jay wrote three of the Federalist Papers). Jay was an important participant in establishing institutions of the U.S. government.

44. Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958, Canton, SD) developed the cyclotron, led the program to separate uranium-235 for the Manhattan Project, and helped organize Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories.

45. Edward Morley (1838-1923, Newark, NJ). Physicist. With Albert Michelson, Morley conducted the famous experiment which established that the speed of light is a constant, inspiring Einstein's theory of special relativity.

46. Henrietta Leavitt (1868-1921, Lancaster, MA). Astronomer who described sequences of stars and discovered the technique for measuring absolute magnitude of stars which Harlow Shapley (1885-1972, Nashville, MO) and Edwin Hubble used to estimate spatial distances.

47. Samuel Houston (1793-1863, Rockbridge County, VA). Soldier, politician. Houston’s force routed the Mexican army at the battle of San Jacinto; Houston served as president of independent Texas, accomplished its annexation to the U.S., and opposed secession (without success – Texans had entered the Union recently enough not to mind leaving it again).

48. Willis Carrier (1876-1950, Angola, NY). Inventor who developed indoor air conditioning.

49. Walter Hunt (1796-1859, Martinsburg, NY) invented the first sewing machine, among other things; but Elias Howe (1819-1867, Spencer, MA) took the patent and built a practical machine, further improved by Isaac Singer (1811-1875, Pittstown, NY).

50. Henry D. Thoreau (1817-1862, Concord, MA). One of the most important U.S. writers and naturalists, and a flawed but original philosopher whose ideas (essentially post-Enlightenment Epicureanism) transcend the narrow context of "Transcendentalism." Thoreau's books posthumously helped to inspire the environmental movement and Gandhi's doctrine of nonviolence. Thoreau's strengths are his spare prose style and his observations and insights, especially about nature.

51. Robert Millikan (1868-1953, Morrison, IL). Physicist; determined the value of Planck's constant; studied cosmic rays.

52. George Gershwin (Jacob Gershowitz) (1898-1937, Brooklyn, NY). The most important American classical composer; his best works have incredible originality.

53. Walter Reed (1851-1902, Belroi, VA) led a team that established the method of transmission of yellow fever. Physician William Gorgas (1854-1920, Toulminville, AL) is also notable for reducing the spread of yellow fever.

54. Karl Beyer, Jr. (1914-1996, Henderson, KY). Biochemist; Beyer led the team that developed the first safe and successful antihypertensive drug.

55. James K. Polk (1795-1849, Mecklenburg County, NC). One of the most successful presidents, Polk's administration resolved the northwestern boundary dispute with Britain and conducted the Mexican War, resulting in cession of California and the southwest to the U.S. (James Buchanan, Polk's secretary of state and later an unsuccessful president, deserves some of the credit.)

56. William Stanley (1858-1916, Brooklyn, NY). Invented the induction coil used in transformers, which helped to make electrical transmission practical.

57. Elmer McCollum (1879-1967, Fort Scott, KS). Biochemist, discovered vitamins and studied the importance of minerals for nutrition.

58. Albert Marsh (1877-1944, Pontiac, IL). Developed the nickel-chromium alloy used for electrical heating elements.

59. Charles Townes (1915-, Greenville, SC). Physicist; constructed the first maser, the basis for the laser developed by Theodore Maiman (1927-, Los Angeles, CA) and Gordon Gould (1920-2005, New York, NY).

60. Wallace Carothers (1896-1937, Burlington, IA) and Paul Flory (1910-1985, Sterling, IL). Industrial chemists, involved with the first production of nylon, neoprene and other synthetic polymers.

61. Edwin Armstrong (1890-1954, New York, NY). Engineer who invented the electronic circuits used in radio tuners and FM (frequency modulation) radio transmission.

62. Washington Irving (1783-1859, New York, NY) was the first widely successful U.S. writer; Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882, Portland, ME) was perhaps the first writer to forge a distinct American style or content.

63. Jacob Perkins (1766-1849, Newburyport, MA) proposed a radiator used in central heating (William Baldwin is sometimes credited with this invention) as well as demonstrating vapor-compression refrigeration (suggested by Oliver Evans). Perkins also mechanized nail-making (an early instance of mass production), developed steel plate printing for bank notes and stamps, and improved steam boilers and other inventions.

64. Steven Weinberg (1933-, New York, NY). Physicist whose theory unified the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces and led to Peter Higgs' prediction of the Higgs field. Two other physicists, Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow (1932-, New York, NY), advanced an equivalent theory.

65. Irving Langmuir (1881-1957, Brooklyn, NY). Chemist; developed an incandescent lamp and other devices, and with Gilbert Lewis (1875-1946, Weymouth, MA), described atomic structure and valence and defined basic terms of theoretical chemistry. Lewis collaborated with Ernest Lawrence in developing the cyclotron.

66. George Goethals (1858-1928, Brooklyn, NY). Chief engineer and builder of the Panama Canal, perhaps the greatest engineering project in history. Notable engineers who worked on the canal included David Gaillard (1859-1913, Fulton, SC). The project employed earth-moving techniques developed at earlier projects such as the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

67. Albert Hoyt Taylor (1879-1961, Chicago, IL). Physicist and engineer; Taylor developed the use of radar for military use and atmospheric and space study.

68. Samuel Langley (1834-1906, Roxbury, MA). Astronomer and founder of scientific research institutions; Langley unsuccessfully investigated powered flight, inspiring the Wright brothers.

69. John Heysham Gibbon (1903-1973, Philadelphia, PA). Pioneered cardiopulmonary bypass surgery using the heart-lung machine. This led to successful surgeries by Clarence W. Lillehei (1918-1999, Minneapolis, MN) and others, artificial valve replacements developed by Albert Starr (1926-, New York, NY) and M. Lowell Edwards (1893-1982, Newburg, OR), bypass grafts and other advances.

70. Luis Alvarez (1911-1988, San Francisco, CA), physicist who developed technical aspects of atomic weapons, and his son, geologist Walter Alvarez (1940-, Berkeley, CA), discovered the iridium layer probably deposited by asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period.

71. George Corliss (1817-1888, Easton, NY). Invented improvements for steam engines, including the four-valve control system. Frederick Sickels (1819-1895, Gloucester County, NJ) developed the drop cut-off for steam engines.

72. George Rogers Clark (1752-1818, Albemarle County, VA). Soldier who repulsed the British in what would become the Northwest Territory during the Revolution.

73. Robert Noyce (1927-1990, Burlington, IA) and Jack Kilby (1923-2005, Great Bend, KS). Inventors of the integrated circuit and microchip which made possible the computer and electronics boom of the late 20th century.

74. Arthur Compton (1892-1962, Wooster, OH). Physicist; studied plutonium and the behavior of X-rays and cosmic rays; led the team that produced the first nuclear chain reaction.

75. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919, New York, NY) tried to redefine the president as an impulsive "man of action" and reformer. His most visionary projects were the conservation of forests and other natural resources and, of course, the Panama Canal, which he expedited by what would today be considered flagrant violation of international law, had any existed at the time.

76. Kary Mullis (1944- , Lenoir, NC). Molecular biologist; developed the polymerase chain reaction method of copying sections of DNA.

77. Linus Pauling (1901-1994, Portland, OR). Chemist and molecular biologist who developed quantum theory of chemical bonds.

78. Progress in fighting cancer has been slow, and only in the last 10-15 years have conceptual revolutions in cell biology and immunology yielded effective treatments for many cancers. In early years the only recourse was surgery of non-metastatic tumors. Chemotherapies introduced in the mid-20th century were effective in treating only a few types of cancer, notably some leukemias. Temporary remissions were achieved by Sidney Farber (1903-1973, Buffalo, NY) but curative treatment began with the introduction of combination chemotherapy by Howard Skipper, Emil Frei, and Emil Freireich; a few chemotherapies had comparable success with other specific cancers, such as cisplatin for testicular cancer. Beginning in the 1970s Steven Rosenberg (1940-, New York, NY) promoted immunotherapies, which represent a probable area for future success. Unfortuately, the vaccines that Rosenberg pursued were only marginally effective (perhaps because the key challenge is not inducing the immune system to recognize a tumor, but blocking cancer's suppression of the immune system) but research by Lloyd Old (1933-, San Francisco, CA) and others has led to recent introduction of tumor vaccines. Many new therapies are in the trial stage.

79. Neil Armstrong (1930-, Wapakoneta, OH). Astronaut, pilot, engineer. Piloted the first successful mission to the lunar surface.

80. David R. Nalin (1941-, New York, NY). Pioneered oral rehydration for patients of infant diarrhea, cholera and other diseases, which has saved millions of lives.

81. William Jenney (1832-1907, Fairhaven, MA) and George A. Fuller (1851-1900). Architects and engineers who developed the principles of design that enabled skyscraper construction. Speaking of which, Elisha Otis (1811-61, Halifax, VT) developed the elevator, which was necessary for building skyscrapers.

82. Rachel Carson (1907-1964, Springdale, PA). Biologist who popularized ecology and concern about effects of environmental pollution.

83. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849, Boston, MA). Romantic writer whose stories epitomized the horror genre; Poe arguably invented the detective story.

84. George Marshall (1880-1959, Uniontown, PA). Soldier and statesman who was one of the directors of the Allied war in Europe and lent his name to the postwar Marshall Plan, an important complement to the successful Cold War policy advocated by George F. Kennan (1904-2005, Milwaukee, WI). Marshall also reorganized the military and participated in planning the Korean War.

85. Patrick Henry (1736-1799, Hanover County, VA). Like Sam Adams in the Northeast, Henry was an influential orator who stirred up revolutionary sentiment. Unlike Adams, Henry was later a notable statesman and governor of Virginia.

86. Harold Urey (1893-1981, Walkerton, IN). Isolated deuterium and developed the gaseous diffusion method for creation of the atomic bomb. The greatest science is disinterested inquiry of nature, and no, looking for radioactive isotopes to make lethal bombs is not science at its best. But it was fortunate for the world that the U.S. reached nuclear capacity before Germany or the Soviet Union.

87. Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914, Cambridge, MA). Philosopher and polymath. Less famous than William James and John Dewey, but while Dewey's progressive "philosophy" is fraudulent utopianism, Peirce's work is perhaps the most serious contribution to philosophy by an American.

88. Robert Woodward (1917-1979, Boston, MA). Chemist; synthesized quinine, cortisone, cholesterol and other organic chemicals, contributing to medicine and industry.

89. Martin Rodbell (1925-1998, Baltimore, MD). Biochemist who discovered the mechanism that transmits chemical messages into cells.

90. Thomas Blanchard (1788-1864, Sutton, MA) is one of several machinists who invented important tool-making machines, including lathes, and a steam carriage. Manufacturer David Wilkinson (1771-1852, Smithfield, RI) invented the slide-rest lathe for cutting screw threads. William Sellers (1824-1905, Upper Darby, PA) designed screw threads, a spiral planer and other tool-making machines. Another important developer of machine tools was Joseph Rogers Brown (1810-1876, Warren, RI) who invented milling and grinding machines. Francis Pratt (1827-1902, Woodstock, VT) also invented machine tools and promoted interchangeable parts.

91. Melvin Calvin (1911-1997, St. Paul, MN). Chemist; elucidated biochemical processes of photosynthesis.

92. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, Larue County, KY). President whose military solution to preserve the nation nearly destroyed it, but who also began the process of freeing four million American slaves. Lincoln's poetic oratory is unusual among American leaders. There is little to admire, however, about most of the statesmen who led the nation before, during, and after the Civil War -- neither the Southerners who defended slavery nor the self-righteous abolitionists who wanted to punish the South. To his credit, Lincoln favored a quick Reconstruction, but the hatred and extremism loosed on both sides might have made that impossible even if he had lived -- and a better man might have been less inclined to bleed the nation dry for the sake of nationalism, an ideal which will be problematic long into the future.

93. Robert E. Lee (1807-1870, Westmoreland County, VA). In spite of his mistakes, Lee was a great military tactician, and his dignified conduct did much to salvage Southern honor in the Civil War.

94. John Benjamin Murphy (1857-1916, Appleton, WI). Physician who pioneered suturing vascular tissue.

95. DeWitt Clinton (1769-1829, Little Britain, NY). The powerful governor and mayor of New York who promoted building of the Erie Canal, greatly influencing the cultural development of the continent.

96. Paul M. Zoll (1911-1999, Boston, MA). A cardiologist, Zoll improved the pacemaker and developed a defibrillator. Claude S. Beck (1894-1971, Shamoka, PA) was the first surgeon to save a patient by defibrillation.

97. George Eastman (1854-1932, Waterville, NY). Developed the first easy-to-use portable camera and roll film, making photography readily available to the public and contributing to the development of motion pictures.

98. Joshua Lederberg (1925- , Montclair, NJ) and Edward Tatum (1909-1975, Boulder, CO). Biologists; discovered genetic exchange (sexual reproduction) in bacteria.

99. Benjamin Wright (1770-1842, Wethersfield, CT) was the senior engineer who directed the building of the Erie, Chesapeake and Ohio and St. Lawrence canals. He recruited the great civil engineers Canvass White (1790-1834, Whitestown, NY) and John Bloomfield Jervis (1795-1885, Huntington, NY), to work on the Erie Canal; they also built railroads, dams and water supply systems.

100. Many of the earliest gospel, blues, jazz, folk, and country music singers, and even the inventors of those American musical genres, are now unknown. However, country musicians such as the Carter Family led by Alvin Pleasant (A.P.) Carter (1891-1960, Maces Springs, VA), Bill Monroe (1911-1996, Rosine, KY) and Hiram (Hank) Williams (1923-1953, Mount Olive, AL) helped to promote vernacular music by interpreting it for popular audiences. Gospel singing began as a hybrid of Anglo and African-American vocal music by slaves, including Wallace Willis who wrote some of the best-known spirituals. Other musicians and singers such as the music director Thomas Dorsey (1899-1993, Villa Rica, GA) polished gospel music. Jazz music began in New Orleans as an elaboration on ragtime and blues by musicians and composers such as Charles (Buddy) Bolden (1877-1931, New Orleans, LA), Ferdinand (Jelly Roll) Morton (1890-1941, New Orleans, LA), James P. Johnson (1894-1955, New Brunswick Twp., NJ) and George W. Thomas (1885-1930?, Houston, TX) and later developed into swing music led by bandleaders such as Fletcher Henderson (1897-1952, Cuthbert, GA) and Benjamin (Benny) Goodman (1909-1986, Chicago, IL). Amedee Ardoin (1896-1941, near Basile, LA) and Joseph Falcon (1900-1965, near Rayne, LA) and others founded zydeco music. Popularizers of blues music are too many to mention, but Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893-1929, Wortham, TX) and Charley Patton (1891?-1934, Hinds County, MS) were among the first to be extensively recorded. Later "electric blues" singers such as McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters) (1915-1983, Rolling Fork, MS) influenced the transition from blues to rock and roll, a big part of U.S. culture today. Folk singer-lyricist Woodrow Wilson (Woody) Guthrie (1912-1967, Okemah, OK) developed political songwriting. Francis (Frank) Sinatra (1915-1998, Hoboken, NJ) defined postwar pop singing. Singer-lyricist-guitarist Charles (Chuck) Berry (1926-, St. Louis, MO) was probably the most important of the rhythm and blues musicians who invented rock and roll, influenced by Louis Jordan (1908-1975, Brinkley, AR). Elvis Presley (1935-1977, Tupelo, MS) was only one of the musicians who invented rock and roll, but perhaps the most important popularizer. Bringing Guthrie's influence into pop music, poetic songwriter-singer Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) (1941-, Duluth, MN) contributed to the radicalization of American culture in the 1960s, for better and worse. James (Jimi) Hendrix (1942-1970, Seattle, WA) was a genius composer and guitarist whose early death was one of popular music's lost opportunities.

101. Marshall Nirenberg (1927-2010, New York City, NY). Biochemist; directed the work of Heinrich Matthaei which established the correspondence between DNA codons and amino acids.

102. Walter Cannon (1871-1945, Prairie du Chien, WI). Physiologist; most important for formulating the concept of homeostasis and using x-rays to study the gastrointestinal system.

103. George Mason (1725-1792, Fairfax County, VA). Planter, statesman. Mason wrote the pro-revolutionary Fairfax Resolves, contributed to Virginia's constitution and declaration of rights which influenced the U.S. Bill of Rights; promoted exploration of the Northwest Territory; he participated in writing the Constitution but opposed ratification because of the inclusion of slavery.

104. Paul Berg (1926-, New York, NY). Molecular biologist who successfully inserted recombinant DNA into a bacterium, leading to the successful creation by Herbert W. Boyer (1936-, Derry, PA) and Stanley Cohen (1922-, New York, NY) of replicating genetically engineered organisms.

105. Matthew Maury (1806-1873, Fredericksburg, VA). Naval officer, meteorologist. Maury wrote the first textbook of oceanography, collected weather data, and with Morse, advised the successful effort of Cyrus Field (1819-1892, Stockbridge, MA) to lay the first transatlantic cable.

106. John Fritz (1822-1913, Chester County, PA). Ironmaster and engineer who led the steel industry to adopt the Bessemer process and open-hearth furnaces.

107. Theobald Smith (1859-1934, Albany, NY). Microbiologist who demonstrated tick-borne infectious disease and immunization using heat-killed pathogens; one of the founders of animal pathology.

108. E. Donnal Thomas (1920-, Mart, TX). Developed bone marrow transplantation; awarded the Nobel Prize with Joseph E. Murray (1919-, Milford, MA), who performed the first successful kidney transplants.

109. Thomas Stearns (T. S.) Eliot (1888-1965, St. Louis, MO). Poet; one of the most important artists of the era of Modernism.

110. Charles Curtis (1860-1953, Boston, MA). Engineer who built and improved gas turbines; also developed a steam turbine widely used in electric power plants.

111. Charles Kettering (1876-1958, Londonville, OH). Inventor; he made many improvements to automobile engines and invented the electric starter; he founded and directed institutions for research in medicine and natural sciences. Unfortunately, he is also remembered for defending leaded gasoline.

112. Joshua Humphreys (1751-1838, Haverford Township, PA). Naval constructor who designed the U.S. naval fleet of frigates.

113. Nathaniel Langford (1832-1911, Westmoreland, NY). Explorer and politician who was one of several people instrumental in creating the world's first national park, Yellowstone, along with geologist Ferdinand Hayden (1829-1887, Westfield, MA) and others. Also noteworthy is George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882, Woodstock, VT) who wrote one of the first works of the environmental conservation movement.

114. John C. Frémont (1813-1890, Savannah, GA). Soldier, explorer, politician. Protegé of Thomas Hart Benton, Frémont explored the Great Plains and encouraged American takeover of California.

115. Carl Rogers Darnall (1867-1941, Collin County, TX). Army surgeon who introduced chlorination.

116. John Jacob Abel (1857-1938, Cleveland, OH). Biochemist; isolated adrenaline and insulin.

117. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968, Atlanta, GA). A flawed man, King nevertheless possessed unusual leadership qualities that made him crucial to the civil rights movement. The importance of that political movement is probably exaggerated, given that crucial breakthroughs such as the Brown decision occurred before the movement reached full strength. And given the hate-filled confusion that "liberal" thought on race has become, it's a little problematic to eulogize any member of the modern civil rights movement. But changing attitudes toward African-Americans was a noble cause; and while King was moving toward more radical stances in the last years of his life, at other times he led the movement responsibly.

118. Stephen Austin (1793-1836, Wythe County, VA). One of the most important settlers in U.S. history, Austin founded Anglo-American communities in Texas and participated in its revolution.

119. Marcian Edward Hoff (1937-, Rochester, NY). Inventor of the microprocessor, allowing development of the desktop computer.

120. Sequoyah (1770-1843, TN). Cherokee who was the first to develop characters to represent an Indian language; thousands of his people became literate using his script.

121. John Joseph Carty (1861-1932, Cambridge, MA). Engineer with Bell Telephone and AT&T who developed long-distance telephony.

122. Paul A. Samuelson (1915-, Gary, IN). Economist who wrote a standard textbook and contributed to economic theory. Another U.S. economist who has made significant contributions is Kenneth Arrow (1921-, New York, NY).

123. Harry Hess (1906-1969, New York, NY). Geologist, used oceanographic research to develop the theory of sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics, vindicating the earlier theory of continental drift.

124. Herman Melville (1819-1891, New York, NY). Novelist whose best writing combined philosophy, adventure and depictions of 19th-century livelihoods with a uniquely American voice. Like Melville's books, much of the best American literature has been strongly regional, including the works of poets such as William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878, Cummington, MA) or Robert Frost (1874-1963, San Francisco, CA) and writers of fiction such as George Washington Cable (1844-1925, New Orleans, LA), Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909, South Berwick, ME), Willa Cather (1876-1947, Winchester, VA), John Chaney (Jack London) (1876-1916, San Francisco, CA), Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941, Camden, OH), William Faulkner (1897-1962, New Albany, MS), and Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989, Guthrie, KY) whose works are shaped as much by their settings as their psychological or philosophical themes.

125. William Burton (1865-1954, Cleveland, OH). Chemist and executive who developed thermal cracking process for refining gasoline from crude oil.

126. Arthur Kornberg (1918-2007, New York, NY). Geneticist, isolated enzymes involved in the synthesis of DNA.

127. George Washington Carver (1860-1943, Diamond County, MO). Agricultural chemist; developed products from Southern crops and promoted the use of legume crops and diversified agriculture. Carver's career is often cited as an example of accomplishment in spite of material disadvantage.

128. Gustavus Swift (1839-1903, Sandwich, MA). Developed railroad refrigeration and introduced other innovations (good and bad) to the meat packing industry.

129. John Adams (1735-1826, Braintree, MA). A leader of the Revolution and negotiator of peace with Great Britain; second president and, with his wife Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818, Weymouth, MA), founder of a family with many distinguished members.

130. Abel Wolman (1892-1989, Baltimore, MD). One of the developers of sanitary engineering and an advocate of chlorination.

131. The importance of sports in U.S. culture as a measure of aspiration and a source of personal inspiration cannot be overstated. Americans play more kinds of sports, and arguably better ones, than any other country in the world, though probably no major sport was invented in the U.S. except basketball (which was invented by Canadian-born James Naismith). Baseball was a popular sport years before Alexander Cartwright (1820-1892, New York, NY) established rules and the first league was formed 130 years ago. American football also evolved gradually, but the efforts of Walter Camp (1859-1925, New Haven, CT) and others were important in establishing rules and increasing the profile of the game. While there are thousands of athletes who have excelled in U.S. sports, and various criteria and endless debates about which were the best, any list of famous Americans should include Harold (Red) Grange (1903-1991, Forksville, PA), the first star of professional football; Bobby Jones (1902-1971, Atlanta, GA), arguably the greatest golfer and founder of the Masters tournament; James Cleveland (Jesse) Owens (1913-1980, Oakville, AL), track star whose performance at the 1936 Olympics established a new standard; George Herman (Babe) Ruth (1895-1948, Baltimore, MD), hitter and pitcher who became baseball's greatest star and dominated the game when it was at its most competitive; Jim Thorpe (1888-1953, Pottawotomie County, OK), greatest all-around athlete of his time who excelled both in track and football; John Unitas (1933-2002, Pittsburgh, PA), among the first great passing quarterbacks; Henry (Hank) Aaron (1934-, Mobile, AL), great hitter and fielder who broke baseball's best-known record. More recently, Michael Jordan (New York City, NY) dominated his sport like no other professional athlete (though some may regret his impact on changing the style of the game).

132. Ralph Alpher (1921-, Washington, DC) and Robert Herman (1914-1997, New York, NY). Physicists who predicted the existence of black-body radiation, a vindication of the big bang theory.

133. Thomas U. Walter (1804-1887, Philadelphia, PA). Architect who built the current dome and wings of the U.S. Capitol building and other important buildings. John Russell Pope (1874-1937, New York, NY) designed the Jefferson Memorial and other monumental buildings in Washington.

134. Elmer Sperry (1860-1930, Cortland, NY). Inventor; developed gyrostabilizers and pilotless aircraft.

135. Charles Pratt (1830-1891, Watertown, MA) and John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937, Richford, NY). Industrialists who created the U.S. petroleum shipping and refining industries, using the genius of men such as chemist Samuel Andrews, who developed fractional distillation. Rockefeller became the world's richest man.

136. Julius Axelrod (1912-2004, New York, NY). Pharmacologist; investigated role of neurotransmitters, leading to better understanding of organic causes of psychiatric illness.

137. Charles Best (1899-1978, West Pembroke, ME). Medical scientist who, with Banting, developed and applied insulin therapy for diabetics.

138. Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864, Trumbull, CT). Geologist, chemist; investigated petroleum cracking methods, promoted research into natural history and founded the American Journal of Science and Arts.

139. Edward O. Wilson (1929-, Birmingham, AL). Entomologist; influential advocate for conservation of biodiversity and founder of the new field of sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. He has also promoted ideas of evolutionary biology advanced by David Sloan Wilson (1949-, Norwalk, CT) (no relation) and others, specifically multi-level selection.

140. Eugene M. Rhodes (1869-1934, Tecumseh, NE). Author; highly regarded writer of regional fiction (the cowboy genre) about the western states. Earlier writers of fiction and nonfiction such as soldier Charles King (1844-1933, Albany, NY) provided source material for the western genre. Later writers such as Owen Wister (1860-1938, Philadelphia, PA), Frederick Faust (Max Brand) (1892-1944, Seattle, WA) and Zane Grey (1872-1939, Zanesville, OH) also contributed to the popularity of westerns and fiction in general. Another important American category of genre fiction is crime/noir fiction, pioneered by novelists Samuel (Dashiell) Hammett (1894-1961, St. Mary’s County, MD), James M. Cain (1892-1977, Annapolis, MD) and Raymond Chandler (1888-1959, Chicago, IL). Some of the most widely read U.S. authors wrote children's books, including Louisa Alcott (1832-1888, Philadelphia, PA), Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957, Pepin, WI) and Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) (1904-1991, Springfield, MA).

141. Russell Ohl (1898-1987, Allentown, PA). Investigated semiconductivity, contributing to the development of the transistor and semiconductor diodes; developed the solar cell.

142. David Alter (1807-1881, Westmoreland County, PA). Prominent scientist who was among the first to suggest that elements produce unique emission spectra, a basic concept of spectroscopy.



Honorable Mention - And here is a list of other historical Americans who made noteworthy contributions.

Raymond Ahlquist (1914-1983, Missoula, MT). Biochemist whose theory of the action of neurotransmitters on receptor sites in cardiac muscle led to the development of beta-blocker drugs.
Fuller Albright (1900-1969, Buffalo, NY). One of many endocrinologists whose work contributed to the modern understanding of physiology.
Victor Ambros (1953-, Hanover, NH). One of the biologists who discovered micro-RNA fragments which are involved in gene expression, regulating cells' development and functions.
Carl Anderson (1905-1991, New York, NY). Physicist who discovered the positron and muon.
George Babcock (1832-1893, Unadilla Forks, NY). With his father, Babcock invented the polychromatic printing press; with partner Stephen Wilcox (1830-1893, Westerley, RI), he invented a successful steam boiler.
Irving Babbitt (1865-1933, Dayton, OH). Intelligent, if only intermittently influential, conservative author and thinker.
Louis Bamberger (1855-1944, Baltimore, MD). Businessman and philanthropist.
Samuel Barber (1910-1981, Chester, PA). Influential 20th-century composer.
Clara Barton (1821-1912, Oxford, MA). Red Cross leader who organized humanitarian efforts during wars and in peacetime.
Frederick Otis Barton (1899-1992, New York, NY). Designed the bathysphere and pioneered deep-sea diving.
John Bartram (1699-1777, Marple, PA) and William Bartram (1739-1823, Philadelphia, PA). Botanists who encouraged interest in natural history, especially of the southeastern U.S.
Richard Bayley (1745-1801, Fairfield, CT). Physician who studied epidemics and advocated quarantine laws.
Seymour Benzer (1921-2007, New York, NY). Physicist/biologist whose research helped establish fundamental knowledge of genetics.
Bruce Beutler (1957-, Chicago, IL). Made discoveries about molecular mechanisms of immune function.
Erastus Bigelow (1814-1879, Boylston, MA). Inventor and industrialist who built a power loom.
Clarence Birdseye (1886-1956, Brooklyn, NY). Introduced flash-freezing technique (learned from Eskimos in Labrador) and built the frozen food industry.
J. Michael Bishop (1936-, York, PA). Molecular biologist who isolated the first oncogene.
Black Hawk (1767-1938, IL). Chief of Sauk nation; fought with the British in war of 1812 and wrote a widely read autobiography.
Harold S. Black (1898-1983, Leominster, MA). Electrical engineer who invented the negative feedback amplifier, one of the most important advances in electronics.
Alfred Blalock (1899-1964, Culloden, GA). Surgeon who discovered the nature of shock and treated cyanosis.
Baruch Blumberg (1925-2011, New York, NY). Developed hepatitis B vaccine.
Bertram Boltwood (1870-1927, Amherst, MA). Physicist; developed radiocarbon dating of rocks.
James Bonner (1910-1996, Ansley, NE). Biochemist and botanist who demonstrated that oxidative phosphorylation takes place in mitochondria.
Daniel Boone (1734-1820, near Reading, PA). Pioneer, one of the first settlers of Kentucky and the trans-Appalachian states. His importance has been exaggerated.
Gail Borden (1801-1874, Norwich, NY). Surveyor, rancher, inventor; developed food preservation method.
Norman Borlaug (1914-, Cresco, IA). Agronomist whose development and promotion of improved strains of wheat initiated the "Green Revolution" of increased agricultural productivity in many regions of the world.
Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838, Salem, MA). Mathematician and scientist, published navigation tables.
Seth Boyden (1788-1864, Foxborough, MA) and Uriah Boyden (1804-1879, Foxborough, MA). Brothers who both had notable achievements as inventors or engineers.
George Brayton (1830-1892, Compton, RI). Engineer and inventor who experimented with internal combustion engines.
Calvin Bridges (1889-1938, Schuyler Falls, NY). Geneticist who worked with Morgan and Sturtevant to develop the theory of genic balance.
John Burroughs (1837-1921, Delaware County, NY). Naturalist and nature writer.
David Bushnell (1742-1824, Saybrook, CT). Built the first submarine, but didn't manage to sell the idea.
John Butterfield (1801-1869, Berne, NY). Businessman; established the overland mail route which supported West Coast settlers.
George Cabot (1752-1823, Salem, MA). Merchant and statesman who supported Federalist policies.
Marvin Camras (1916-1995, Chicago, IL). Developed magnetic tape recording.
Chester Carlson (1906-1968, Seattle, WA). Invented the photocopier.
Herman Y. Carr (1924-, Alliance, OH). Physicist who pioneered medical use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
George Catlin (1796-1872, Wilkes-Barre, PA). Artist whose works depicted the disappearing life of the Plains Indians.
Charles F. Chandler (1836-1925, Lancaster, MA). Chemist who advocated improvements in sanitation and public health.
Avram (Noam) Chomsky (1928-, Philadelphia, PA). Outspoken linguist whose theory that language is innate influenced evolutionary psychology.
John Bates Clark (1847-1938, Providence, RI). Economist; developed the theory of marginal utility.
Henry Clay (1777-1852, Hanover County, VA) and Daniel Webster (1782-1852, Salisbury, NH). The greatest of several 19th century congressional leaders who wielded as much influence as presidents.
Charles Coffin (1844-1926). Inventor of arc welding.
Edwin Cohn (1892-1953, New York, NY). Biochemist who fractionated blood plasma.
William Coley (1862-1936, Saugatuck, CT). Surgeon who was the first to discover efficacy of immunotherapies for cancer, more than a century before such therapies became routine practice.
Lloyd Conover (1923-, Orange, NJ). Invented tetracycline, the first artificially created antibiotic.
William D. Coolidge (1873-1975, Hudson, MA). Physicist and inventor who developed tungsten filaments and the thermionic X-ray tube.
Peter Cooper (1791-1883, New York, NY). Industrialist who pioneered puddling iron, supervised laying the first trans-Atlantic cable and later in life became an activist for Indian causes.
Frederick Cottrell (1877-1948, Oakland, CA). Invented the electrostatic precipitator used in water treatment.
Henry Cowles (1868-1939, Kensington, CT). Ecologist who replaced the purely descriptive study of ecology with study of the underlying dynamic processes. Dynamism in ecology is now over-emphasized (it leads to stability, which is more important), but Cowles' work introduced a new paradigm. Seminal work in ecosystem ecology was conducted by Raymond Lindeman (1915-1942, Redwood Falls, MN).
James Crafts (1839-1917, Boston, MA). Chemist and physicist who developed synthetic process in organic chemistry.
Donald Cram (1919-2001, Chester, VT). Chemist; studied molecular interactions.
James Cronin (1931-, Chicago, IL). Physicist who has studied subatomic reactions.
Glenn Curtiss (1878-1930, Hammondsport, NY). Aviator and airplane designer; invented the hydroplane.
Harvey Cushing (1869-1939, Cleveland, OH). Neurosurgeon who drastically improved methods and success rates of brain surgery and made other contributions to medical knowledge.
Manasseh Cutler (1742-1823, Killingly, CT); Chaplain and botanist who became one of the founders of the Ohio settlement.
Michael De Bakey (1908-, Lake Charles, LA). Surgeon who performed the first artificial heart implant, pioneered heart surgery techniques and developed military hospitals.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886, Amherst, MA). One of the most original U.S. poets.
Dorothea Dix (1802-1887, Hampden, ME). Humanitarian; advocated improvement of asylums.
Charles Drew (1904-1950, Washington, DC) led the development of blood banks.
William Dreyer (1928-2004, Kalamazoo, MI) and Joe Claude Bennett (1933-, Birmingham, AL). Immunologists who demonstrated the genetic mechanism creating antibody diversity.
Brian Druker (1955-, Saint Paul, MN) developed Gleevec, a targeted therapy which is, for the time being, an effective cure for one form of leukemia.
Clarence Dutton (1841-1912, Wallingford, CT). Geologist; contributed to the doctrine of isostasy.
James Eads (1820-1887, Lawrenceburg, IN). Brilliant engineer whose achievements included the first major bridge across the Mississippi and jetties at mouth of the river. Engineers such as John Roebling (born in Germany), Squire Whipple (1804-1888, Hardwick, MA) and William Howe (1803-1852, Spencer, MA) contributed to the development of road and railroad bridges.
Edward East (1879-1938, Du Quoin, IL). Plant geneticist, chemist; one of the developers of hybrid seed, studied heredity.
Gerald Edelman (1929-, New York, NY). Immunologist who determined antibody structure; also investigated evolutionary theories of neuroscience.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969, Denison, TX); Chester Nimitz (1885-1966, Fredericksburg, TX); Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964, Little Rock, AR). Commanders who directed the successful European and Pacific campaigns in the Second World War. MacArthur oversaw the reconstruction of Japan.
Gertrude Elion (1918-1999, New York, NY). Biochemist who developed the first important antiviral drug and drugs to fight immune rejection and cancer.
Philo Farnsworth (1906-1971, Beaver, UT). Inventor of first successful electronic television.
John Feeney (John Ford) (1856-1973, Cape Elizabeth, ME) and Victor Fleming (1883-1949, Pasadena, CA). Great film directors; Ford helped popularize the Western, Fleming created two of Hollywood's greatest classics.
Stephen Field (1816-1899, Haddam, CT). Influential conservative Supreme Court justice.
James Finley (1762-1828, MD?). Designer and builder of early suspension bridges.
Henry Flagler (1830-1913, Hopewell, NY). Oilman and developer who helped to create Florida as a recreation and retirement resort, a good and bad thing.
William Foege (1936-, Decorah, IA). Pathologist who promoted immunization and conceived the global eradication of smallpox.
Jay Forrester (1918-, Anselmo, NE). With Gordon Brown, pioneer of computer engineering and electrical systems science.
Stephen Foster (1826-1864, Pittsburgh, PA). The first famous U.S. songwriter.
Henry Frick (1849-1919, West Overton, PA). Industrialist who created the Frick Collection.
Milton Friedman (1912-2006, New York, NY). Economist; important for advocating laissez-faire monetary policies.
John Froelich (1849-1933, Clayton County, IA). Invented the first gasoline-powered farm tractor.
Walter S. Gifford (1885-1966, Salem, MA). Director of AT&T who established Bell Labs, a locus of technical innovation.
Grove Gilbert (1843-1918, Rochester, NY). Geologist who described geomorphological processes in the Utah desert.
Walter Gilbert (1932-, Boston, MA). One of the biochemists who developed methods of gene sequencing.
Donald Glaser (1926-, Cleveland, OH). Physicist; invented the bubble chamber used to study the behavior of subatomic particles.
Joseph Glidden (1813-1906, Charlestown, NH). Inventor of barbed wire, widely used in ranching especially in the Western U.S.
Robert A. Good (1922-2003, Crosby, MN). Physician and researcher who studied immune system function and oversaw the first successful bone marrow transplant to cure immunodeficiency.
Charles Goodnight (1836-1929, Macoupin County, IL). Important founder of cattle ranching in late 19th century.
John Gorrie (1803-1855, Charleston, SC). Physician; received the first U.S. patent for refrigeration, but Alexander Twining developed the invention commercially.
Elisha Gray (1835-1901, Barnesville, OH). Inventor who developed improvements to the telegraph, but is best known as an also-ran. He developed the telephone but Alexander G. Bell beat him to the patent by mere hours.
Nathanael Greene (1742-1786, Warwick, RI). General of the Revolutionary War who waged successful campaign in the southern colonies.
William Gregg (1800-1867, Monongalia County, WV). Industrialist who promoted cotton manufacturing in the South.
Samuel Gross (1805-1884, Easton, PA). One of the most important and influential surgeons of his time.
Samuel Guthrie (1782-1848, Brimfield, MA). Physician; discovered chloroform and (perversely enough) invented improvements to firearms.
George E. Hale (1868-1938, Chicago, IL). Astronomer who founded several important observatories, making possible the discoveries of Hubble and others.
Edwin Hall (1855-1938, Great Falls, ME). Chemist who discovered the electromagnetic effect named after him.
Ross Granville Harrison (1870-1959, Germantown, PA).  Zoologist; developed techniques of culturing and grafting animal tissues and studied neural tissue.
Daniel Halladay (CT). Designed the windmills used throughout the western U.S. for pumping water and power generation.
William Halsted (1852-1922, New York, NY). Physician who developed block anesthesia, introduced use of surgical gloves and made other important contributions to medical practice.
John Hay (1838-1905, Salem, IN). Statesman, writer, poet. Began his unusual career as Lincoln's private secretary and historian; later, he was an influential ambassador and secretary of state.
Allen Hazen (1869-1930, Norwich, VT). Engineer; promoted sand filtration systems for urban wastewater.
Philip S. Hench (1896-1965, Pittsburgh, PA). Physician who discovered the effects of adrenal hormones including cortisone. Russell Marker (1902-1995, Hagerstown, MD) developed the successful method for producing cortisone.
Alfred Hershey (1908-1997, Owosso, MI). Geneticist who demonstrated that DNA contained genetic material.
D.A. Henderson (1928-, Lakewood, OH). Physician who led the World Health Organization's successful global effort to eradicate smallpox and other vaccination campaigns.
Abram Hewitt (1822-1903, Haverstraw, NY). Manufacturer, businessman, politician. Early steel producer who became a reform politician and philanthropist.
Lewis Hine (1874-1940, Oshkosh, WI). Photographer who documented the conditions of child laborers, contributing to eventual reforms.
John Holland (1929-, Fort Wayne, IN). Computer scientist who contributed to optimization and system theory.
Benjamin Holt (1849-1920, Concord, NH). Invented caterpillar track for agricultural machinery.
Birdsill Holly (1820-1894, Auburn, NY). Inventor; invented steam heating, the fire hydrant, and improvements to fire engines and hydraulics; held more patents than anyone at the time except Edison.
Winslow Homer (1836-1910, Boston, MA). Great painter whose works depicted 19th-century America and nature.
Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000, Somerville, MA). Great 20th-century composer.
Albert Hull (1880-1966, Southington, CT). Physicist, engineer; developed electron tubes and X-ray crystallography.
George Inness (1825-1894, Newburgh, NY). Noteworthy U.S. landscape painter.
Frederic Ives (1856-1937, Litchfield, CT). Improved or invented the halftone process in photoengraving, the binocular microscope, and processes of printing and photography.
Karl Jansky (1905-1950, Norman, OK). Engineer; discovered astronomical radio waves, inspiring Grote Reber (1911-2002, Wheaton, IL) to pioneer radio astronomy.
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938, Jacksonville, FL). African-American writer, composer, and activist who worked with the NAACP.
Reynold B. Johnson (1906-1998, Dassel, MN). Invented the computer disk drive.
Joseph (c. 1840-1904, OR?). Chief who led the Nez Percé 1,000 miles through the northwest after rejecting resettlement on a reservation; finally surrendering near the Canadian border, he announced "I will fight no more forever."
Henry J. Kaiser (1882-1967, Sprout Brook, NY). Industrialist who oversaw the buildup of the naval fleet in WWII; also a notable philanthropist.
Robert E. Kahn (1938-, New York, NY) and Vinton Cerf (1943-, New Haven, CT). Among the inventors of the software used in Internet communication.
Charles Keeling (1928-2005, Scranton, PA). Scientist who recorded the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Helen Keller (1880-1968, Tuscumbia, AL). Overcame blindness and deafness to become a writer and advocate.
Charles Kelman (1930-2004, New York, NY). Invented technique of ultrasound eye surgery.
Edward C. Kendall (1886-1972, South Norwalk, CT). Biochemist, discoverer of cortisone and other adrenal hormones.
Arthur Atwater Kent (1873-1949, Burlington, VT). Inventor of automobile ignition systems.
Leonard Kleinrock (1934-, New York, NY). Engineer and computer scientist; developed computer networking technology which forms basis of the Internet.
Willis Lamb(1913-2008, Los Angeles, CA). Physicist whose observation of hydrogen spectra initiated the development of quantum electrodynamics.
Lame Deer (Tháha Hušté) (1903?-1976, SD). Lakota Sioux holy man whose autobiography contained profound statements of American Indian traditional beliefs.
Edwin H. Land (1909-1991, Bridgeport, CT). Invented polarizing filters, instant photography, and the color-translating microscope.
Aldo Leopold (1887-1948, Burlington, IA). Naturalist and writer about environmental conservation.
Willard Libby (1908-1980, Grand Valley, CO). Chemist; developed carbon-14 method of radiocarbon dating.
Thomas Macdonough (1783-1825, Macdonough, DE). Naval officer who defeated the British at Plattsburg, one of the most important U.S. victories in the war of 1812.
Samuel Mather (1817-1890, Middletown, CT). Capitalist, one of the founders of the iron industry in the Great Lakes region.
Hiram Maxim (1840-1916, Sangerville, ME). Inventor of the first practical machinegun; he also experimented with airplanes and other inventions.
Barbara McClintock (1902-1992, Hartford, CT). Plant geneticist who discovered transposition of genes, a crucial milestone.
Ephraim McDowell (1771-1830, Rockbridge County, VA). Surgeon; early practitioner of successful ovariotomy and hernia operations.
H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880-1956, Baltimore, MD). Greatest American commentator and journalist.
(Robert) Bruce Merrifield (1921-2006, Fort Worth, TX). Biochemist; developed method for synthesis of amino acids for medical and commercial applications.
Edwin McMillan (1907-1991, Redondo Beach, CA) and Glenn Seaborg (1912-1999, Ishpeming, MI). Physicists who discovered neptunium and created other transuranic elements. McMillan's phase stability theory led to improvements to the cyclotron.
Robert Mills (1927-1999, Englewood, NJ). Physicist who collaborated with Chen Ning Yang to apply gauge theory to quantum chromodynamics; gauge symmetry was subsequently also important in the electroweak theory.
Hiram Moore (1801-1875, Shirley, MA) invented the combine harvester.
John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913, Hartford, CT). Financier, organized General Electric, financed the creation of U.S. Steel; so wealthy he bailed out the U.S. government in 1895; benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum and other institutions.
Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964, Savannah, GA). Writer of religious-themed short stories.
Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903, Hartford, CT). Landscape architect and influential designer of parks and estates; he helped advocate conservation of national parks.
Charles Page (1812-1868, Salem, MA). Improved the induction coil invented by Joseph Henry; developed electrical devices.
Clair Patterson (1922-1995, Mitchellville, IA). Geochemist who found the age of the Earth; campaigned against use of leaded gasoline.
Robert Peary (1856-1920, Cresson, PA); naval officer and explorer who may have reached the North Pole after making numerous scientific expeditions to the Arctic. Naval aviator and explorer Richard Byrd (1888-1957, Winchester, VA) explored both polar regions, though he was not the first to visit either pole.
Lester Pelton (1829-1908, Vermilion, OH). Engineer who improved the hydroelectric turbine (the Pelton turbine).
Oliver Perry (1785-1819, South Kingstown, RI). Naval officer who defeated the British in the most important battle of the War of 1812.
John R. Pierce (1910-2002, Des Moines, IA). Scientist who developed and promoted communications satellites and related devices; supervised development of the transistor.
John Wesley Powell (1834-1902, Mount Morris, NY). Geologist, ethnologist, and explorer who wrote about the geology and resources of the southwestern U.S.
Edward Purcell (1912-1997, Taylorville, IL), Versatile physicist and astronomer; with Felix Bloch, developed nuclear magnetic resonance technology, which was later developed into MRI by Raymond Damadian (1936-, Melville, NY), Paul Lauterbur (1929-, Sidney, OH) and other inventors.
Theodore Richards (1868-1928, Germantown, PA). Chemist; the first American-born scientist to win a Nobel Prize.
Norbert Rillieux (1806-1894, New Orleans, LA). Invented evaporator for sugar processing.
Dennis Ritchie (1941-, Bronxville, NY). Computer programmer; developed widely used programming languages.
James Robertson (1742-1814, Brunswick County, VA). Pioneer, explorer, Indian fighter and early leader of Tennessee.
American theater and film were among the most popular in the world for a century and produced many great popular entertainers: dancers Bill (Bojangles) Robinson (1878-1949, Richmond, VA) and Frederick Austerlitz (Fred Astaire) (1899-1987, Omaha, NE); leading men like Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957, New York, NY), Frank (Gary) Cooper (1901-1961, Helena, MT), Marion Morrison (John Wayne) (1907-1979, Winterset, IA) and more; and great comedians of radio and film like (Canadian) Mack Sennett, W. C. Dukenfield (W.C. Fields) (1879-1946, Darby, PA) and Julius (Groucho) Marx (1890-1977, New York, NY), to name only a few. They are impossible to omit from any list of great Americans (even if actors since then have enjoyed way too much celebrity).
Richard Rodgers (1902-1979, New York, NY). The greatest 20th-century American popular songwriter, along with Cole Porter (1891-1964, Peru, IN). (Irving Berlin, the other one, was born overseas.)
Henry Rogers (1840-1909, Mattapoisett, MA). Businessman; developed oil/gas separator machinery.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945, Dutchess County, NY). The most ambitious U.S. president after Washington and Lincoln, for better and worse. The welfare state Roosevelt instigated has an uncertain and ominous future. However, Roosevelt helped to save the world by his support of Britain and his successful prosecution of the war, which transformed a country almost fatally damaged by misguided monetary policy into history's most powerful nation within a few years.
Peyton Rous (1879-1970, Baltimore, MD). Virologist who developed a blood-preserving technique and demonstrated viral transmission of some cancers.
F. Sherwood Rowland (1927- , Delaware, OH). Chemist; with Mexican chemist Mario Molina, Rowland predicted the depletion of the ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbons.
Henry Rowland (1848-1901, Honesdale, PA). Physicist; made important investigations of electromagnetism and optics.
Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957, Oyster Bay, NY). Important astronomer who studied stellar atmospheres and co-developed the theory of stellar evolution.
John L. Savage (1879-1967, Cooksville, WI). Engineer; designed Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams and other dams, power plants, and water resource projects.
William Savery (1721-1787, Philadelphia, PA). Cabinetmaker, one of a number of early American craftsmen who were important figures in the decorative arts.
Winfield Scott (1786-1866, Petersburg, VA). One of the greatest U.S. soldiers, though his advice was often disregarded; he conducted the relatively bloodless Mexican War.
Philip A. Sharp (1944-, Falmouth, KY). Molecular biologist, co-discoverer of gene splicing.
Fulton Sheen (1895-1979, El Paso, IL). The first, and only great, TV preacher, Sheen was an articulate defender of religious views.
David Sheridan (1908-2004, New York, NY). Invented modern disposable catheter.
Christopher Sholes (1819-1890, Mooresburg, PA). Journalist, inventor; developed the typewriter.
George E. Smith (1930-, White Plains, NY). Co-inventor of the charge-coupled device at Bell Labs.
Hoke Smith (1855-1931, Newton, NC). Enlightened, common-sense, non-populist politicians are almost unknown (and even more so today), but Smith seems to have been of that rare breed. He supported vocational education, conservation, road building, and regulation of public utilities, and opposed disenfranchisement of blacks and the League of Nations. Why can't they all be like this?
George Snell (1903-1996, Bradford, MA). Biologist who discovered the major histocompatibility complex; also wrote about a biological basis for ethics.
Al Sommer (1942-, New York City, NY). Epidemiologist, pioneered vitamin A supplemental therapy.
John Philips Sousa (1854-1932, Washington, DC). Famous composer of marches.
Percy L. Spencer (1894-1970, Howland, ME). Engineer, discovered microwave heating.
Leland Stanford (1824-1893, Watervliet, NY). Politician and businessman who with his partners, including Collis Huntington (1821-1900, Harwinton, CT) and Charles Crocker (1822-1888, Troy, NY), worked all angles to raise private and public funding for the transcontinental railroad, the brainchild of master businessman James Hill and engineer Theodore Judah (1826-1863, Bridgeport, CT).
George Sternberg (1838-1915, Otsego County, NY). An important bacteriologist of the time of Koch and Pasteur, Sternberg isolated pathogens and advocated quarantine and disinfection.
Charles M.A. Stine (1882-1954). Chemist who directed DuPont's chemical laboratories, including development of nylon and other products.
Joseph Strauss (1870-1938, Cincinnati, OH) was chief engineer of one of the world's most beautiful bridges (and longest, at the time), the Golden Gate.
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828, North Kingstown, RI) was a noteworthy portraitist of the early U.S. Though not a great painter, John Trumbull (1756-1843, Lebanon, CT) is responsible for familiar likenesses of Revolutionary War leaders and events.
John Studebaker (1833-1917, Adams County, PA). Early auto manufacturer.
James Sumner (1887-1955, Canton, MA). Biochemist, first to isolate enzymes.
William Sumner (1840-1910, Paterson, NJ). Unlike most social scientists, Sumner was an articulate traditionalist. He studied U.S. cultural folkways, criticized socialism and defended laissez-faire principles in economics and government.
James Swinnerton (1875-1974, Eureka, CA) may have been the first to draw a comic strip, which later cartoonists such as Rube Goldberg (1883-1970, San Francisco, CA) and Charles Schulz (1922-2000, Minneapolis, MN) would make into a popular art form.
Howard Temin (1934-1994, Philadelphia, PA) George Thomson (1892-1975, Cambridge, MA) and Clinton Davisson (1881-1985, Bloomington, IL). Physicists; experimentally confirmed de Broglie's theory that electrons have wave properties.
Benjamin Tilghman (1821-1901, Philadelphia, PA), soldier and inventor who invented sandblasting and one of the important methods of paper manufacture from wood pulp.
William Upjohn (1853-1932, Kalamazoo, MI), doctor who invented the dissolvable pill and founded an early pharmaceutical company.
James Van Allen (1914-2006, Mount Pleasant, IA) used balloons to explore the upper atmosphere and discovered the Van Allen belts.
John Van Vleck (1899-1980, Middletown, CT). Physicist; used quantum mechanics to develop theory of magnetic properties of atoms.
Edward Vedder (1878-1952, New York, NY), physician who discovered treatments for beriberi and dysentery.
Lillian Wald (1867-1940, Cincinnati, OH). Nurse, reformer. Advocated improvement of immigrant housing and argued for abolition of sweatshops and child labor.
Frank Wanlass (1933-, Salt Lake City, UT). Designer of complementary semiconductor (CMOS) technology used in integrated circuits.
Aaron Montgomery Ward (1844-1913, Chatham, NJ). Inventor of mail-order business.
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915, Franklin County, VA). The most notable black leader in the period after the failure of Reconstruction, Washington stressed the importance of education, economic integration, and self-improvement.
Lewis Waterman (1837-1901, Decatur, NY). Inventor, businessman; developed the fountain pen.
James D. Watson (1928-, Chicago, IL). One of the four discoverers of the molecular structure of DNA; an unpleasant character, but he was involved in an important breakthrough.
Noah Webster (1758-1843, West Hartford, CT). The dictionary man; his book has helped educate millions of Americans and improved literacy and communication between social groups.
Ida Wells Barnett (1862-1931, Holly Springs, MS). Activist for civil rights in the Reconstruction era who took on segregation of railways, lynching, and other causes.
Paul Wesley (1921-2007, St. Louis, MO). Scientist who wrote about relationship of physics and ecology.
John A. Wheeler (1911-, Jacksonville, FL). Physicist; has investigated black holes and quantum gravity.
James Whistler (1834-1903, Lowell, MA). Great American Realist painter; his work anticipated Impressionism.
Norbert Wiener (1894-1964, Columbia, MO). Mathematician who investigated cybernetics and stochastic processes.
Daniel Hale Williams (1858-1931, Hollidaysburg, PA). One of the first to perform successful heart surgery; he promoted medical training for African-Americans.
Kenneth G. Wilson (1936-, Waltham, MA). Theoretical physicist who has contributed to elementary particle theory.
Edward Witten (1951-, Baltimore, MD). Physicist and mathematician active in quantum field theory and string theory.
Abel Wolman (1892-1989, Baltimore, MD). One of the developers of sanitary engineering and an advocate of chlorination.
A. Baldwin Wood (1879-1956, New Orleans, LA). Hydraulic engineer who developed pumps and sewage systems.
Franklin W. Woolworth (1852-1919, Rodman, NY). Merchant who pioneered chain stores and fixed pricing of merchandise.
Steve Wozniak (1950-, San Jose, CA). One of the inventors of personal computers.
Sewall Wright (1889-1988, Melrose, MA). Biologist; studied evolution and population genetics.
Linus Yale (1821-1868, Salisbury, NY). Inventor of the combination lock.
Chuck Yeager (1923-, Myra, WV). Air Force pilot, first to exceed the speed of sound.
Brigham Young (1801-1877, Whitingham, VT). Despotic church leader who singlehandedly led the Mormon settlement of Utah.

There may be plenty of names I omitted (feel free to send feedback) and some may disagree with names I’ve included. Still, there are enough names on the above list (more than 500) to demonstrate the breadth of American genius. A lot of people are upset about the current leadership of the U.S., and I’m not arguing, but it’s important to remember how many good and talented individuals the United States has produced and probably will produce in the future.

A few general observations about the above list can be made... One is that the importance (or self-importance) of urban culture is exaggerated. Only 40 percent of the people on this list grew up in cities, which reflects the historic ratio of urban to rural Americans. As recently as 1900, 60 percent of Americans lived in rural areas. (More than 75 percent of Americans live in urban centers today -- this trend has changed fast.) Most of the people on this list were born in prosperous smaller towns. So the idealization of rural and small-town America as a place of opportunity (where anyone can be president, etc.) is not just a cliché but a reality -- or at least it used to be. Anyway, it contradicts the mean-spirited, misleading picture that writers and intellectuals have painted of small-town America as culturally disconnected and backward. Only in the 19th century when New York became a refuge for millions of European immigrants did a city produce a disproportionate number of important figures.

Most of the individuals on the list (almost 60 percent) were born in the northeastern states -- north of the Potomac and east of Pittsburgh. This is not totally surprising either, since the Northeast was the most populous region of the nation until 1880, when it was passed by the Midwest. (This has also changed. Today, the Northeast only holds about 21 percent of the U.S. population. The balance has shifted to the "new South" and especially California and the other western states, which have grown more than tenfold since 1900.) However, raw numbers alone do not explain the phenomenon. The Northeast has never accounted for 60 percent of the U.S. population at any time since the census was established in 1790. In fact, the populations of the Northeast and the Old South historically tracked together closely (until the late 20th century, when the South surged ahead), yet the South is underrepresented on the list, more so than overall population can explain. The South has held at least 30 percent of the U.S. population for most of the nation's history (and still does) but just 17 percent of the individuals on this list hail from there. (This includes Texas, which has been a populous state for a relatively short time, not really long enough to produce many leaders; only eight native Texans make the list. Interestingly, three of them are musicians.)

This can largely be explained by slavery -- up to 40 percent of the population of the South was, and is, African-American, a group that for much of the time period in question was denied social mobility and economic independence -- but there is still some underachievement unaccounted for. There are plenty of obvious explanations for the poor showing of the South, none perhaps completely satisfactory. (For example: The culture of the Deep South prior to the 20th century placed high emphasis on social standing and low emphasis on social mobility; a relatively small percentage of the population enjoyed leisure time, social standing and influence; the economy was largely agrarian with limited capital. It's not true that there were no cultural achievements in the antebellum South, but fewer individuals were members of a "creative class.")

Amazingly, more than half of these leaders came from just five states: New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Virginia. All five are on the East Coast and two of the five are tiny New England states. This is partly indicative of population distribution during the 18th century, but still disproportionate; not since 1790 have those five states accounted for half the U.S. population, and the great majority of the figures on this list (85 percent) were born after 1800. New York was the most populous state in the U.S. for many years, so it’s no surprise that a lot of notable people come from there, but the number is even higher than it should be -- 20 percent of the names on the list are New Yorkers, though the state of New York has never accounted for more than 15 percent of the nation's population. And again, the southern states are much less represented than they should be, especially the Carolinas (among the most populous states even in 1790, when they held 16% of the nation's people, but they have only produced seven names on the list, or 1.4%) and Maryland (also one of the most populous states at one time, but one that shares cultural and economic features with the southern states).

The western states have produced a small number of important figures (5 percent) because until the mid-20th century not many people lived there. The West still has a frontier culture in some ways, with the self-satisfied individualism that implies. Of course, no American social group is more self-satisfied than New Englanders, but it hasn’t kept them from restless productivity -- 25 percent of the names on the list come from small, partly agrarian New England, more than the South and West combined! This is double the expected number based on demographic considerations (New England held 14 percent of the U.S. population in the first census of 1790; the percentage has declined steadily since then). If the 50 states are listed in order according to the number of figures on this list that they produced, five of the six New England states rank in the top twenty. If this seems strange to you, go drive around New England -- you will see a population that is active, prosperous, ethnically and socially homogeneous and integrated, educated (perhaps overeducated), with access to the advantages of culture but without the decadence of urban culture.

Today, the American population and culture is becoming more geographically (if not racially or culturally) homogeneous; the so-called "New South" and West are on the rise. It will be interesting to see where tomorrow's leaders, or the next day's, come from. (Besides Asia.) Hopefully, the United States will continue to produce innovators in the future.