African Americans:

Hank Aaron
Maya Angelou
Louis Armstrong
Mary McLeod Bethune
George Washington Carver
Nat “King” Cole
Aretha Franklin
Dizzy Gillespie
Zora Neale Hurston
Jesse Jackson
Mahalia Jackson
James Earl Jones
Martin Luther King
Charles Mingus
Hiram Rhoades Revels
Harriet Tubman
Ben Vereen
Booker T. Washington
Oprah Winfrey
Malcolm X

Artists:

Gutzon Borglum
William Hanna
Marsden Hartley
Winslow Homer
Peter Hurd
Bill Mauldin
Jackson Pollock
Howard Pyle
Norman Rockwell
Gilbert Stuart
Andrew Wyeth

Business Leaders:

John M. Browning
Walter Percy Chrysler
John Deere
Eleuthère Iréneé du Pont
Henry Ford
Jabez Gorham
Ruth Handler
William Randolph Hearst
Henry Heinz
Conrad Hilton
Phil Knight
George Parson Lathrop
Mr. Potato Head
Harland David Sanders
Samuel Slater
William Henry Vanderbilt

National "Characters":

P.T. Barnum
Clyde Barrow
Daniel Boone
John Wilkes Booth
Gutzon Borglum
Butch Cassidy
William “Buffalo Bill” Cody
George M. Cohan
Davy Crockett
Bing Crosby
Matt Groening
Woody Guthrie
Jesse James
Helen Keller
Emmett Kelly
Evel Knievel
Liberace
Charles Lindbergh
Huey Long
Mr. Potato Head
Carrie Amelia Moore Nation
Jefferson C. (“Soapy”) Smith
Harriet Tubman
Ann Landers & Abigail Van Buren

Cultural Figrues:

Louis Armstrong
Fred Astaire
Bob Barker
Benny Benson
Mary McLeod Bethune
Daniel Boone
Marlon Brando
Tom Brokaw
Johnny Carson
Johnny Cash
Lon Chaney
Cesar Chavez
Kurt Cobain
George M. Cohan
Nat “King” Cole
Gary Cooper
Bing Crosby
John Dewey
Walt Disney
Dorothea Dix
Bob Dylan
Barbara Eden
Ralph Edwards
Stephen Collins Foster
Aretha Franklin
Geronimo
Dizzy Gillespie
Woody Guthrie
Erick Hawkins
Jim Henson
Buddy Holly
Crazy Horse
Charles Ives
Mahalia Jackson
James Earl Jones
Chief Joseph
Buster Keaton
Emmett Kelly
Hank Ketcham
Francis Scott Key
Don Knotts
Cheryl Ladd
Louis L'Amour
Peggy Lee
Queen Lydia Liliuokalani
Charles Mingus
Osceola
John Knowles Paine
Dolly Parton
Elizabeth Peratrovich
Cole Porter
Edna Purviance
Will Rogers
Sacagawea
Charles Schulz
Molly Hootch and Anna Tibeluk
Ben Vereen
Ray Walston
Booker T. Washington
John Wayne
Lawrence Welk
Paul Whiteman
Jack Wilson Wovoka
Frank Lloyd Wright

Inventors:

Alexander Graham Bell
John M. Browning
George Washington Carver
Michael DeBakey
John Deere
Eleuthère Iréneé du Pont
Thomas Edison
Philo Farnsworth
Henry Ford
Ruth Handler
Henry Heimlich
Donald Fletcher Holmes
Edwin Herbert Land
Robert Millikan
Julius Robert Oppenheimer
Jonas Salk
John Sheehan
Noah Webster
Wilbur and Orville Wright

Pioneers and "Firsts":

Neil Armstrong
Vitus Bering
Daniel Boone
Davy Crockett
Amelia Earhart
Matthew Hanson
Grace Murry Hopper
Andrew Jackson
Charles Lindbergh
Shannon Lucid
Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion
S. Christa McAuliffe
Ellison Onizuka
Zebulon M. Pike
Jeannette Rankin
Joe Reddington, Jr.
Sally Ride
Nellie Tayloe Ross
Sacagawea
Alan B. Shepard, Jr.
Jefferson C. (“Soapy”) Smith
Molly Hootch and Anna Tibeluk
Wilbur and Orville Wright
Chuck Yeager

Politicians & Activists:

Eva Adams
Chester Arthur
William Jennings Bryan
James Buchanan
Sitting Bull
Ralph Bunche
Aaron Burr
James Earl Carter
Cesar Chavez
Richard B. Cheney
William Jefferson Clinton
Calvin Coolidge
Jefferson Davis
George Dewey
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Millard Fillmore
Hiram L. Fong
Gerald R. Ford
James A. Garfield
Al Gore
Ulysses Grant
Ernest Gruening
Warren G. Harding
William Henry Harrison
Benjamin Harrison
Carl Hayden
Rutherford B. Hayes
Patrick Henry
Herbert Hoover
Crazy Horse
Hubert H. Humphrey
Andrew Jackson
Jesse Jackson
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
Thomas Jefferson
Andrew Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
John Kennedy
Jeane Kirkpatrick
Queen Lydia Liliuokalani
Abraham Lincoln
Huey Long
General Douglas MacArthur
James Madison
Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion
William McKinley
Russell Means
Walter Mondale
James Monroe
Richard Nixon
Thelma Pat Nixon
Sandra Day O'Connor
Elizabeth Peratrovich
Franklin Pierce
James Polk
Jeannette Rankin
Janet Reno
Hiram Rhoades Revels
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller
Caesar Rodney
Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt
Nellie Tayloe Ross
William Howard Taft
Zachary Taylor
Strom Thurmond
Harry S Truman
Martin Van Buren
Jesse Ventura
George Washington
James G. Watt
Roger Williams
Malcolm X

Scientists:

Florence Bascom
George Beadle
Rachel Louise Carson
George Washington Carver
Edward Condon
Michael DeBakey
Grace Murry Hopper
Jack Horner
Edwin Herbert Land
Shannon Lucid
Julius Robert Oppenheimer
Linus Pauling
Linus Pauling
Sally Ride
Jonas Salk
B. F. Skinner
Merlin Tuttle
James Dewey Watson

Sports Figures:

Hank Aaron
Andre Agassi
Danny Ainge
Johnny Bench
Yogi Berra
Paul "Bear" Bryant
Dale Earnhart
Lou Gehrig
Eric Heiden
Michael Jordan
Phil Knight
Joe Reddington, Jr.
Mary Lou Retton
Picabo Street
Jesse Ventura
Jerry West

Accomplished Women:

Eva Adams
Louisa May Alcott
Maya Angelou
Florence Bascom
Mary McLeod Bethune
Rachel Louise Carson
Beverly Cleary
Dorothea Dix
Amelia Earhart
Barbara Eden
Edna Ferber
Zelda Fitzgerald
Aretha Franklin
Sarah Josepha Hale
Grace Murry Hopper
Zora Neale Hurston
Mahalia Jackson
Helen Keller
Jeane Kirkpatrick
Cheryl Ladd
Queen Lydia Liliuokalani
Juliette Gordon Low
Shannon Lucid
S. Christa McAuliffe
Margaret Mitchell
Carrie Amelia Moore Nation
Thelma Pat Nixon
Sandra Day O'Connor
Dolly Parton
Elizabeth Peratrovich
Edna Purviance
Jeannette Rankin
Janet Reno
Sally Ride
Nellie Tayloe Ross
Sacagawea
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Molly Hootch and Anna Tibeluk
Harriet Tubman
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Oprah Winfrey

Writers & Poets:

Louisa May Alcott
Maya Angelou
Ray Bradbury
Pearl S. Buck
Rachel Louise Carson
Beverly Cleary
Samuel Clemens
James Fenimore Cooper
Edna Ferber
Zelda Fitzgerald
Robert Frost
Theodore Geisel
John Grisham
Sarah Josepha Hale
Joel Chandler Harris
Zora Neale Hurston
George Parson Lathrop
Sinclair Lewis
Charles Lindbergh
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Margaret Mitchell
Flannery O'Conner
Edgar Allan Poe
Ezra Pound
Ernest Taylor Pyle
James Whitcomb Riley
Will Rogers
Carl Sandburg
Charles Schulz
Upton Sinclair
John Steinbeck
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Booth Tarkington
Noah Webster
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Tennessee Williams
Oprah Winfrey

Looking for a famous American?

This page presents short biographies of more than 200 famous American's drawn from our unit, "The 50 States." These personalities are arranged by theme.

Just click a theme at the top of the page to view a selection list for that theme.