History as therapy

Where's Buckwheat? He got shot, too.

I think it's important to note that the list is about Americans who are famous, not important, or great, or influential, or likeable, or pretty, or talented or saintly, or friendly, or mean or even good.

Fame is fleeting and, frankly, very unimportant.

The story should be why USA Today took such a worthless poll, or at least whether they specifically noted the poll was about famousosity rather than any other measure.

The list specifically excluded Presidents and First Ladies, so it's beside the point to suggest a "better" list that's full of Presidents.

The outcome as reported in USA Today is still bogus... Where's Paris Hilton? Where's Britney Spears?

Fame is mostly a matter of newspapers, magazines, and TV, and if anyone thinks Amelia Earhart has had more column inches or TV time in living memory than Britney Spears, they must be snoozing.

Even including Presidents, the fact that Abe Lincoln was famous in 1860 doesn't make him famous now. In terms of newspaper ink and TV time, Abe Lincoln is nowhere on the spectrum of celebrity compared to Britney.

To put it another way, this was a really stupid question! Couldn't those idiots have asked about significance, impact on ordinary lives, heroic personal qualities, or anything except fame?

This isn't really a story about a failure of education. It's a story about the inanity of USA Today.

As a High School teacher I coudn't agree more that the schools are teaching a one sided view of American history. In an effort to honor minority and women contributions education has been putting others on the backburner. There is currently an effort to change some of the TAKS(learning) standards in Texas and the part on multiculturalism is given a much greater importance than the constitution. I doubt legislators will approve that though. The textbooks of history make a point of dedicating whole paragraphs to minority and women contributons, even if those contribution are minor compared to others. Do we really need to know who invented the traffic light and who was the first African-American female millionaire who made her fortune selling hair products?

In addition to all these guys did, there's also what they _didn't_ do:

Washington: Well, he stopped the Newburgh Conspiracy. That's something.

Lee: He could have led the Army of Northern Virginia into guerrilla warfare, but he knew a lost cause when he saw one, and thankfully spared our nation the horrors of insurgency on American soil.

Lincoln: Hmmm...habeas corpus, confiscation of property, unilateral executive action - Lincoln stretched the powers of the executive far more than any President up to that time. It is not difficult to imagine a lesser man exploiting domestic insurrection as a pretext for arrogating power to himself (think Palpatine in Episode III).

FDR: Had he been so inclined, he could have led America into fascism or worse. See here:

www.changingthetimes.net/samples/ww2/dark_america.htm

www.changingthetimes.net/samples/darkvalley/panay_war.htm

Then there's those white male slaveholders who wrote the Constitution: they could've given us a democracy, but instead gave us a federal republic. There are worse things.

I think we need a happy medium. I think our understanding of history would be better with a working knowledge of the figures of history that maybe accomplished more mundane things but were representative of cultural movements, but not to the neglect of significant individuals that were instrumental in American life.

My list of important figures to know in American History...

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. MLK
3. FDR
4. Andrew Jackson
5. The Suffragists
6. Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea
7. Henry Ford
8. Ronald Reagan
9. Thomas Jefferson
10. Steve Jobs

1. No, of course not, but …

2. Given that the kids were asked to name in terms of FAME (an admittedly noxious component in today's American culture), not IMPACT, and to **not** name Presidents or First Ladies …

I think by that rule, you have to (shudder) consider Americans who had a kind of "rock star" (by modern standards) impact on the culture. Not necessarily the best and brightest and certainly not the most important in their fields. (Or even in the most important fields – thus I’m not sure of the merit of Rod’s angry swipe at the inventor of the birth control pill, who no one even knows.)

No order to mine, Rod, but I'd keep **King,** **Edison,** and **Elvis** (reluctantly over Sinatra; they had equally immense impacts on popular music but Elvis bridged more genres) from your list.

From the USA Today list, I keep **Ben Franklin** (even though Alexander Hamilton had more long-term historical impact among Founding Father non-presidents). Franklin, with his inventive and publishing as well as political talents, was definitely the “rock star” of the 18th century, if nothing else.

For author/artist … I think **Ernest Hemingway.** Many American authors were/are better by far; none have ever been more famous, even Mark Twain (my runner-up here). As for painters … Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol achieved a certain kind of “rock star” notoriety, but none like Samuel Clemens’, let alone Papa’s.

For doctor – the politically correct answer would be Charles Drew. The real answer is **Jonas Salk,** without even a question. (Bias: My father was one of the few to survive childhood polio pre-1955 still walking.)

In the “feared, loathed, yet copied gazillionaire” category, I could keep Ford or Gates like you, Rod, but you have to throw John D. Rockefeller in there too. I’ll throw out Gates because Steve Jobs would split his votes (LOL).

The car has a unique role in Americana – but that never could have happened without oil. (And look to what depths as a nation, environmentally and terrorism-wise, our reliance on oil has taken us.) Rockefeller was so powerful that the entire federal government, in essence, was brought to bear against the monopoly of Standards Oil. And on a more superficial note, “Rockefeller” has proven a more elite and lasting brand name than “Ford.” So **John D. Rockefeller** it is.

For 19th century agitator … again, the politically correct vote is Harriet Tubman (and she was an amazing human being), but for pure fame and impact, you have to go with **William Lloyd Garrison,** -- Thoreau and Emerson cancel each other out. (Some might name Joseph Smith, too …)

For athlete, Babe Ruth vs. Jim Thorpe vs. Muhammad Ali … wow. My heart says Ali, my head ultimately votes **Babe Ruth** (if only because baseball is a bigger sport than boxing, and Ruth played such a role in keeping America’s spirits up during the Depression – as did Will Rogers in his cowboy movies, for that matter). You realize that, in this day and age, some would nominate Dale Earnhardt Sr., too …

And from Hollywood, which you have to admit has been a core underpinning (horrors, I know) of American culture for nearly a century … ironically, I think you have to agree with the original USA Today list and go with **Marilyn Monroe,** a woman never even nominated for an Academy Award. But her impact has been iconic, often in negative ways, on American womanhood (would the outsized, albeit very different, curves of Barbie dolls be so popular today without her?).

NOTE: Einstein is debatable – he’s on the list if you consider him American (maybe I’d kick off Salk), but not if you consider him German. If you’re willing to include a group of people, as Rod did, “the Puritans” were/are certainly as famous as any of these ten – maybe they replace Garrison. And I thought of all kinds of explorers – that classic American category – such as Lindbergh, Earhart, Lewis and Clark, the Wright Brothers, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, but they all sort of canceled each other out, IMHO.

(Interesting that two of the heroes of my grandparents’ youth – Ruth and Hemingway – make my list, and I strongly considered others in Rogers, Lindbergh and Earhart. This may say something about when “fame” became a determining factor in one’s rank in American history.)

My own idiosynchratic Top 10, excluding Presidents, ranked chronologically:

1. Christopher Columbus
2. Jonathan Edwards
3. Benjamin Franklin
4. Alexander Hamilton
5. Washington Irving
6. Robert E. Lee
7. Mark Twain
8. Thomas A. Edison
9. George Marshall
10. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mostly white, and all male. Not because I want it to be that way, but because that's the way it is.

No, Djerassi's not obscure at all. He's nearly a god among chemists, if not a very eccentric one.

Just a quick point - the USA Today Article did say no presidents or first ladies.

I tend to think the choice of Oprah Winfrey is not a bad one. She was born to unwed teenage parents in the deep South before Brown v. Board of Education was decided, and went on to become one of the most influential figures in contemporary American culture and a multi-billionaire besides. It's a remarkable story.

I like the noms of de Tocqueville and the Beatles for their impact on American culture.

But of course, THEY WEREN'T AMERICAN.

(Which is how Richard Nixon came so close to getting John Lennon kicked out of the country as a subversive. Which might in turn have saved his life, with 20-20 hindsight.)

Rod, the list was "most famous," not "most worthy of fame." Who the most famous Americans are involves no more thought than rattling some names off the top of your head. Your entry on General Lee involves too much thought -- maybe I'm just a damn Yankee, but he's not among the most famous Americans.

To answer your questions:
*My wife and I long ago decided we're not doing public schools for our two kids. Nothing against that decision for others, though.

*My top ten: Michael Jordan, Abe, FDR, Franklin, MLK, Babe Ruth, Elvis, Jefferson, Carnegie, Twain. (Add these if we're not counting Presidents: H. Ford, Gates, Anthony).

Nice comprehension skills, G. Some of us deliberately ignored the restriction.

I agree that Rod needs to add an update to note that Presidents and first ladies were excluded. Also, the question blows - "most famous" is not the same thing as "most important" or "most influential". My husband actually offered Michael Jordon because he is so well know world wide. I don't think this study is worth two dead flies in terms of offering any insight into the mind of Americans.

Rod,

It really hurts you to post stuff like this. You owe us all a retraction. Presidents and first ladies were excluded. Were they not, of course, the list would have been topped by Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, among others. Excluding them makes for a much more interesting exercise, and frankly I don't have many quibbles with their list. It's asked for famous, not influential, not even important. Why not add Babe Ruth? or Tiger Woods? Considering what people think counts for fame today that fact that the kids' list is substantive is a good thing.

Agreed. As it stands, it does kinda come across as "What are all the women and brown folk doing on our famous people list!"

Um, folks, in Rod's defense, he DID offer substitutes for the three presidents he originally listed.

One of whom was the inventor of the birth control pill, remember?

Yeah, bur think about it. You think the guy who invented the birth control is more deserving of fame than the woman who symbolically stands for full enfranchisement of women? I know, Susan B. didn't do it all herself. *I* would like to see more credit gone to my great aunt Lizzie, whose name I share. But you also want to put a Nazi sympathizer (Ford) and a rock star over the symbolic representative of the abolition movement (Tubman). I'm not saying you're entirely wrong, especially on the "fame" scale. But it displays a bias worth at least admitting is present.

OK, if presidents and first ladies are off limits, here's my list (not necessarily in order):

Henry Ford
Thomas Edison
John Marshall
Jackie Robinson
Louis Armstrong
Philo Farnsworth
Benjamin Franklin
The Wright Brothers
William Lloyd Garrison
Alexander Hamilton
Lewis and Clark (agree that they can be considered as "one")

I was going to put Thurgood Marshall and the legal team of Brown vs. Board of Education. I don't mean to denigrate the accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but I would commend readers of this blog to the magisterial three volume history of "America in the King Years" by Taylor Branch, and Richard Kluger's "Simple Justice". King's assassination, and the establishment of his holiday, have caused him to cast a long shadow over the achievements of other Americans -- notably other black Americans -- in advancing the cause of civil rights. Nothwithstanding his "I have a dream" speech, and the "Letter from the Birmingham Jail", in his time and in his context, King and SCLC were simply among a number of individuals and groups whose personal witness moved the ball forward on civil rights. In that context, I offer for the purposes of argument, the achievements in the context of culture that caused Americans in many walks of life to begin to SEE and listen to the black Americans in their midst. First was Louis Armstrong, who helped transform American music, and how our music and our culture were seen not only by ourselves, but around the world. Second was Jackie Robinson, who entered the field of combat of America's most popular spectator sport, giving witness not only to considerable athletic achievement, but to passion, justice and dignity in a manner that prepared the ground that Dr. King and others later marched on. And I can make the case that Thurgood Marshall, James Nabrit, George E. C. Hayes, Spotswood Robinson and the other Brown attorneys established the legal beachhead in 1954 from which their could be no turning back.

If we're counting inventors, I don't think the contributions of Philo Farnsworth can be underestimated. It was his invention that took "entertainment" from a place you went to, or a thing you did yourself and/or with your family or friends, to a thing you owned in your home and experienced passively. Certainly radio and the various stereophonic gadgets are a part of the cluster of inventions that led to that outcome, but television stands head and shoulders above them because the phenomenon of television established the centrality of entertainment in the menu of personal experience, for good or ill -- and our culture has been experiencing the consequences of that development ever since.

Richard

freddy: are you sure #8 on your list shouldn't be "Henry" Ford?

This reminds me of when I was a child, and my grandmother, who belonged to the John Birch Society, used to send us similar articles about how America was going to a hell in a handbasket and children didn't even know who Nathan Bedford Forrest was anymore, oh the horror, the horror. These clippings were often inserted in envelopes lined with foil, in case THEY were x-raying her correspondence. She also sent us a complete set of McGuffey's readers, which I read out of curiosity and probably learned something from.

So, yeah, the schools do a poor job of teaching history, and apparently have done so for at least the last 50 years. Really, though, you probably should be more worried about the horrendous job they do of teaching science.

If it's famous in the world, Michael Jordan has to be in there and probably Oprah, if we are talking about reality and not how things should be.

And don't forget Al Gore. He invented the WWW.

It's also worth pointing out that "fame" is a poor measurement even for historical standards. For example, most people who know American history will recognize William Lloyd Garrison. But few will recognize Theodore Weld, who probably did far more for the abolitionist movement. Garrison antagonized everyone, while Weld went from church to church and converted thousands of people to the cause.

Any why limit oneself to a mere half millenium of American history?
Some may scoff at why older matters of state ought be part of the equation. To them I say: let your brother in faith across the sea enlighten you in the folly of your ways, 'tis Lent after all, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls..." etc

In a land where Christianity is the ESTABLISHED religion, with a monarch as the Church's head (full disclosure -- so long as they're not married to a Roman Catholic) and where the Sovereign's Prime Minister nominates clerical leaders called bishops... rejoice and be glad that secular civil leaders (educated with a modicum of "ancient" history) decline to follow the advice of the most elevated of said Christian clerical leaders who proposes...?

http://news.google.co.uk/?ncl=1129553206&hl=en&topic=h

Sharia Law ...

Who's watching the hen house when the fox comes to call?

Even if the list is about 'fame', Harriet Tubman?

Face it, this list is about the continuing denigration of white males, and indeed white people, in this country. It is about the total annihilation of the historical America. Why do you think that some many young white kids, you white males, are in thrall to the spell of Barrack Obama -- for God's sake the man doesn't even have an American name -- young white males are taught to hate themselves, and are not taught the great accomplishments that 'people who look like them' have achieved.

Lincoln and his successors (although, now that I think of it, I should have included his predecessor, Andrew Jackson) were important because they enabled the pernicious and false doctrine of Human "equality" to invade and eventually warp what could have been a worthy culture.

Re. Jackson: see his 1832 veto message:

"Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions...."

As for Lincoln & equality, while he favored emancipation, he also believed that black & white could never coexist, and therefore proposed colonizing freed slaves in Africa. Today we'd call that "ethnic cleansing".

As for Lincoln's successors, well, there were some idealists who believed that no law should distinguish on the basis of skin color. But there were enough certifiable racists in Congress (and the populace at large) to severely limit the federal government's protection of freedmen's rights. For example, the current versions of the Reconstruction Amendments were all passed in lieu of competing provisions that would have established far broader degrees of equality with respect to legal rights, voting, etc.

As to the topic of equality in general, one may legitimately distinguish between equal treatment (i.e., government treats all citizens the same, and permits differences in outcomes), and equality of outcomes (i.e., government treats different citizens differently, in order to ensure that each ends up with the same wealth/status/education/etc.). I am far less comfortable with the latter than the former.

Well, as Barack seems to have gone by 'Barry' in HS, he himself recognizes the foreignness of his name. America is not a clean slate, we aren't some universal nation. There are certainly holders of American passports with names such as Mehmed and Yoko, but the names themselves are outside our cultural tradition.

Wouldn't it be more interesting, rather than trying to debate who's more important or influential, to stick with the original issue of fame?

I think it's interesting to consider fame in and of itself, regardless of how people got their fame. It tells us something about the American psyche in each era to list the people who somehow caught the popular imagination. This is much more revealing than these tedious attempts to assign importance to historical figures.

So I'd like to start a list of the MOST FAMOUS PEOPLE in American History. Perhaps we have to break it up by era, because it's rather unfair to compare fame in widely variant times. The important point is to single out people who achieved a kind of iconic status that allowed their fame to represent something to the people of their time, and even to later generations.

Here's my list of the most famous (non-presidential) people of their times:

Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Paine
Jonathan Edwards
Henry Clay
Daniel Webster
Edwin Booth
Mark Twain
Robert E. Lee
John Brown
Wild Bill Hickock
Buffalo Bill Cody
Sitting Bull
Jesse James
Sarah Bernhardt
John D. Rockefeller
Andrew Carnegie
Alexander Graham Bell
Charlie Chaplin
Mary Pickford
Thomas Edison
Ty Cobb
Babe Ruth
Ernest Hemingway
Al Capone
John Dillinger
Jesse Owens
Joe Lewis
Clark Gable
Amelia Earhardt
Frank Sinatra
Gen. McCarthur
Gen. Patton
Jonas Salk
Marilyn Monroe
Joe Dimaggio
Elvis
Martin Luther King
Muhammed Ali
Howard Hughes
Arnold Palmer
Madonna
Michael Jackson
Michael Jordan
Oprah
Bill Gates
Stever Jobs
Britney Spears

I could go on, and I'm not sure how to break this down to a top ten, but one trend is clear - the closer to modern times we get, the more the list is dominated by entertainers and sports heroes. I also wish there were more feedback on who exactly was famous way back when, and who wasn't. My list could be severely edited based on more info.

Rod,

this comes directly from our rather useless US history books from eleentary school onward. you want a better list? Schools need money to get new books, and someone has to pay for that. As I work toward licensurein socials studies, I see this brought up maybe once a week. More often with the right professor. Then again, most Americans stil believe Washington was a great military leader. In fact he was worthless in commanding the battlefield. Today, his record of 3 wins and 9(!) losses is brushed aside. If it were football, (based in part on Euro-american battle formations) he wouldn't have even made the playoffs. Superbowl victor? Hardly. Still, he WAS the only Founding Father with any military experience (more big losses and captured during the French and Indian Wars, but not yet in command).

I don't have a list... there are too many important people in American history.

The thing is, Christopher, again, they didn't say 'important'. They said 'famous'. Whole 'nother thing.

Karen,

I'd agree that entertainment fame was fleeting in the 19th century, particularly among performers, because there was no way to capture their performances for posterity. This has changed of course, what with movies and audio recordings. But in their times, some performers truly were incredibly famous people, such as Buffalo Bill Cody and his traveling Wild West Show, which went all over the world and helped create the myths of the American West. Likewise, there's no way to appreciate just how famous Edwin Booth was in his time. Or Sara Bernhardt.

If we limit ourselves to people who remain famous today, we show a prejudice to the modern era, which is perhaps fine, but it blurs the distinction between fame and posterity. Fame is a judgement during a person's lifetime, while posterity is a judgement made well after their lifetime. Sometimes they coincide, often not. If posterity is the criteria, then we shouldn't include anyone still alive, and severely limit those who died in the last century. For example, I put McCarthur on my list, as did others, because he was hugely famous during his lifetime. And yet, in a hundred years, I'm sure he will be largely forgotten, a mere footnote. In fact, very few people are famously remembered in posterity. As Rod points out, it depends alot on who gets talked about in secondary school history books. That list is manipulable and also self-fulfilling, and it will change over time. What's interesting is how the people who got on the USA survey were not, for the most part, terribly famous during their lifetime, but have been made so for the sake of posterity, which is quite another form of judgment.

Christopher More says, "Then again, most Americans stil believe Washington was a great military leader. In fact he was worthless in commanding the battlefield. Today, his record of 3 wins and 9(!) losses is brushed aside."

Words fail me.

Chris, George Washington was a military genious. Don't take my word for it. Go read some histories written by military historians. Yes, he had numerous failures. He had a rag-tag army against the red coats. What he was able to accomplish with what little he had to work with was fantastic. If you want to say he was "overrated," I'll disagree but it's an argument worth having. But to say "worthless"? I'm stunned.

His record of 3 wins and 9 losses (although I take issue with your numbering) equaled victory in the American Revolution. The army that wins a war doesn't always do it by winning the most battles. (Otherwise the South would have won the Civil War.) Washington with his army beat the British. He deserves tremendous credit.

Anonymous at 8:20 p.m.:

Speaking of remedial history lessons -- why did you leave PRESIDENT (as well as general) Ulysses Grant on your list? ;-P

Why Fenimore Cooper is forgooten?
Michael Jackson?

Maybe it's a mark of the purity of mind of these commenters that they seem to have left out one whole category of famous people--the criminals. Al Capone, Leopold and Loeb, John Dillinger, Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, the Unabomber, etc. Or would you class them as "infamous" rather than "famous"? In that case, I think most of the pop stars should go in the same bin!

I hate the "most famous" category, so I'm going to give my "greatest" Americans picks (in no particular order) instead:

1. Helen Keller
2. Martin Luther King, Jr.
3. Frederick Douglass
4. Thomas Jefferson
5. Benjamin Franklin
6. Abraham Lincoln
7. Mark Twain
8. Eleanor Roosevelt
9. Thomas Edison
10. Bill Gates

If I were to pick "most famous" (also in no particular order) instead:

1. O.J. Simpson
2. Michael Jackson
3. Lucille Ball
4. Michael Jordan
5. Martin Luther King, Jr.
6. Donald Trump
7. JFK
8. Bill Clinton
9. Richard Nixon
10. Bill Gates

Actually, someone did mention Ali, my mistake. Let me correct him, however, when he says that baseball is bigger than boxing. This happens to be true now, but it wasn't true in the '60s and '70s, when they were about equal except for Ali who was bigger than both sports, and when Babe Ruth played, a time when the biggest boxing matches (think Dempsey, Tunney, Greb) attracted far more attention than the biggest baseball games (or series). It's recorded fact that Babe Ruth was jealous of all the attention Dempsey received from the media.

Felix:

I'll give you your point (reluctantly -- though look how Babe Ruth's immortal comment when asked why he deserved more money than President Hoover, "I had a better year than him," set the tone for sports salaries and professional sports' cultural importance ever since).

And I'll also cry mea culpa at omitting Helen Keller. OUCH! on my part.

I very much admire Robert E Lee and think he always put his family, neighbors and country ahead of himself. If that country included slaveholders, it's not reasonable to ask him to purify his country before risking his life for it. Let's not forget the north was enslaving white men, women and children in their factories, while they bitterly assailed the south's treatment of the blacks.