31 Henry Clay
One of America’s greatest legislators and orators, he forged compromises that held off civil war for decades. 32
Albert
Einstein
His greatest scientific work was done in Europe, but his humanity 33
Ralph
Waldo
Emerson
earned
him
undying
fame
in
America.
The bard of individualism, he relied on himself—and told us all to 34
Jonas
Salk
do
the
same.
His vaccine for polio eradicated one of the world’s worst plagues. 35
Jackie
Robinson
He broke baseball’s color barrier and embodied integration’s 36
William
Jennings
Bryan promise.
“The Great Commoner” lost three presidential elections, but
his 37
populism transformed the country.
J. P. Morgan
The great financier and banker was the prototype for all the Wall 38
Susan
B.
Anthony
Street
barons
who
followed.
She was the country’s most eloquent voice for women’s equality 39
Rachel
Carson
under
the
law.
The author of Silent Spring was godmother to the environmental 40
John
Dewey movement.
He sought to make the public school a training ground for democratic 41
Harriet
Beecher
Stowe life.
Her Uncle Tom’s Cabin inspired a generation of abolitionists and
set
the
stage
for
civil
war.
42 Eleanor Roosevelt
She used the first lady’s office and the mass media to become “ 43
W.
E.
B.
DuBois
first
lady
of
the
world.
”
One of America’s great intellectuals, he made the “problem of 44
Lyndon
Baines
Johnson
the
color
line
”
his
life
’
s
work.
His brilliance gave us civil-rights laws; his stubbornness gave us 45 Before 46
William
Lloyd
Garrison
Samuel the
Internet,
F. there
was
B.
Morse
Morse code. Vietnam.
Through his newspaper, The Liberator, he became the voice of abolition. 47
Frederick
Douglass
After escaping from slavery, he pricked the nation’s conscience with an eloquent accounting of its crimes.
48
Robert
Oppenheimer
The father of the atomic bomb and the regretful midwife of the 49
Frederick
Law
Olmsted
nuclear
era.
The genius behind New York’s Central Park, he inspired the greening 50
James
K.
Polk
of
America
’
s
cities.
This one-term president’s Mexican War landgrab gave us California, 51
Margaret
Sanger
Texas,
and
the
Southwest.
The ardent champion of birth control—and of the sexual freedom 52
Joseph
Smith
that
came
with
it.
The founder of Mormonism, America’s most famous homegrown 53
Oliver
Wendell
Holmes
Jr. faith.
Known as “The Great Dissenter,” he wrote Supreme Court opinions that continue to shape American jurisprudence. 54
Bill
Gates
The Rockefeller of the Information Age, in business and philanthropy 55
John
Quincy
Adams alike.
The Monroe Doctrine’s real author, he set nineteenth-century America 56
Horace
Mann
’
s
diplomatic
course.
His tireless advocacy of universal public schooling earned him the title “The Father of American Education.” 57
Robert
E.
Lee
He was a good general but a better symbol, embodying conciliation 58
John
C.
Calhoun
in
defeat.
The voice of the antebellum South, he was slavery’s most ardent
defender.