Historical Characters Semester 2

Charles Darwin

English natural scientist who formulated a theory of evolution by natural selection (1809-1882); wrote on the Origin of Species

Thomas Edison

American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures.

Mary Elizabeth Lease

became well known during the early 1890's for her actions as a speaker for the populist party. She was a tall, strong woman who made numerous and memorable speeches on behalf of the downtrodden farmer. She denounced the money-grubbing government and encouraged farmers to speak their discontent with the economic situation.

J.P. Morgan

Banker who buys out Carnegie Steel and renames it to U.S. Steel. Was a philanthropist in a way; he gave all the money needed for WWI and was payed back. Was one of the "Robber barons"

Joseph Glidden

Invented barbed wire

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892. By 1901, his company dominated the American steel industry.

Eugene V. Debs

Leader of the American Railway Union, he voted to aid workers in the Pullman strike. He was jailed for six months for disobeying a court order after the strike was over, head of the Socialist Party in early 1900s

Mary Baker Eddy

Founded the Church of Christian Scientists and set forth the basic doctrine of Christian Science.

John D. Rockefeller

Established the Standard Oil Company, the greatest, wisest, and meanest monopoly known in history

Jane Addams

1860-1935. Founder of Settlement House Movement. First American Woman to earn Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 as president of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Grover Cleveland

22nd and 24th president, Democrat, Honest and hardworking, fought corruption, vetoed hundreds of wasteful bills, achieved the Interstate Commerce Commission and civil service reform, violent suppression of strikes

Samuel Gompers

He was the creator of the American Federation of Labor. He provided a stable and unified union for skilled workers.

Helen Hunt Jackson

A writer. Author of the 1881 book A Century of Dishonor. The book exposed the U.S. governments many broken promises to the Native Americans. For example the government wanted Native Americans to assimilate, i.e. give up their beliefs and ways of life, that way to become part of the white culture.

James B. Duke

Made tobacco a profitable crop in the modern South, he was a wealthy tobacco industrialist.

Leland Stanford

American financier of the Central Pacific Railroad (built 1863-1869) and founder of Stanford University (1885).

Susan B. Anthony

(1820-1906) social reformer who campaigned for women's rights, the temperance movement, and was an abolitionist, helped form the National Woman Suffrage Association

Marcus Garvey

African American leader during the 1920s who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and advocated mass migration of African Americans back to Africa. Was deported to Jamaica in 1927.

John Hay

Secretary of State under McKinley and Roosevelt who pioneered the open-door policy and Panama canal

William Randolph Hearst

A leading newspaperman of his times, along with Joseph Pulitzer, he ran The New York Journal and helped create and propagate "yellow (sensationalist) journalism."

W.E.B. DuBois

1st black to earn Ph.D. from Harvard, encouraged blacks to resist systems of segregation and discrimination, helped create NAACP in 1910 and the Niagara Movement

Emilo Aguinaldo

Filipino rebel leader who took control of the Philippine capital, Manila, with the help of the United States

Theodore Roosevelt

1858-1919. 26th President. Increased size of Navy, "Great White Fleet". Added Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine. "Big Stick" policy. Received Nobel Peace Prize for mediation of end of Russo-Japanese war. Later arbitrated split of Morocco between Germany and France.

James B. Weaver

He was the Populist candidate for president in the election of 1892; received only 8.2% of the vote. He was from the West.

Ida B. Wells

African American journalist. published statistics about lynching, urged African Americans to protest by refusing to ride streetcars or shop in white owned stores

George Washington Carver

African American farmer and food scientist. His research improved farming in the South by developing new products using peanuts.

Booker T. Washington

African American progressive who supported segregation and demanded that African American better themselves individually to achieve equality.

Joseph Pulitzer

He used yellow journalism in competition with Hearst to sell more newspapers. He also achieved the goal of becoming a leading national figure of the Democratic Party.

Mark Twain

United States writer and humorist best known for his novels about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1835-1910)

George Creel

Headed the Committee on Public Information, for promoting the war effort in WWI

Cornelius Vanderbilt

A railroad owner who built a railway connecting Chicago and New York. He popularized the use of steel rails in his railroad, which made railroads safer and more economical.

William Howard Taft

(1908-1912), was endorsed by Roosevelt because he pledged to carry on progressive program, then he didn't appoint any Progressives to the Cabinet, actively pursued anti-trust law suits, appoints Richard Ballinger as Secretary of the Interior, Ballinger opposed conservation and favored business interests, Taft fires Gifford Pinchot (head of U.S. forestry), ran for re-election in 1912 but lost to Wilson

Upton Sinclair

muckraker who shocked the nation when he published The Jungle, a novel that revealed gruesome details about the meat packing industry in Chicago. The book was fiction but based on the things Sinclair had seen.

Nellie Bly

muckraking United States journalist who exposed bad conditions in mental institutions; traveled around the world in 72 days (1867-1922)

Hellen Keller

American deafblind author ,"The Story of My Life"

Margaret Sanger

American leader of the movement to legalize birth control during the early 1900's. As a nurse in the poor sections of New York City, she had seen the suffering caused by unwanted pregnancy. Founded the first birth control clinic in the U.S. and the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood.

Frances Willard

Became leader of the WCTU, along with Carrie Nation. She worked to educate people about the evils of alcohol. She urged laws banning the sale of liquor. Also worked to outlaw saloons as step towards strengthening democracy.

Woodrow Wilson

28th president of the United States, known for World War I leadership, created Federal Reserve, Federal Trade Commission, Clayton Antitrust Act, progressive income tax, lower tariffs, women's suffrage (reluctantly), Treaty of Versailles, sought 14 points post-war plan, League of Nations (but failed to win U.S. ratification), won Nobel Peace Prize

Ida Tarbell

A leading muckraker and magazine editor, she exposed the corruption of the oil industry with her 1904 work A History of Standard Oil.

Warren G. Harding

Pres.1921 laissez-faire, little regard for gov't or presidency. "return to normalcy" after Wilson + his progressive ideals. Office became corrupt: allowed drinking in prohibition, had an affair, surrounded himself w/ cronies (used office for private gain)

Ernest Hemingway

Lost Generation writer, spent much of his life in France, Spain, and Cuba during WWI, notable works include A Farewell to Arms

Albert Fall

He was Secretary of the Interior during Harding's administration, and was a scheming anti-conservationist. He was convicted of leasing naval oil reserves and collecting bribes, which was called the Tea Pot Dome scandal.

Jack Dempsey

United States prizefighter who was world heavyweight champion (1895-1983)

Henry Ford

1863-1947. American businessman, founder of Ford Motor Company, father of modern assembly lines, and inventor credited with 161 patents.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A novelist and chronicler of the jazz age; he and his wife, Zelda, were the "couple" of the decade but hit bottom during the depression. his novel The Great Gatsby is considered a masterpiece about a gangster's pursuit of an unattainable rich girl.

Zora Neale Hurston

African American writer and folklore scholar who played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance

Al Capone

A mob king in Chicago who controlled a large network of speakeasies with enormous profits. His illegal activities convey the failure of prohibition in the twenties and the problems with gangs.

Langston Hughes

African American poet who described the rich culture of African-American life using rhythms influenced by jazz music. He wrote of African American hope and defiance, as well as the culture of Harlem and also had a major impact on the Harlem Renaissance.

Amelia Earhart

First female pilot to cross the Atlantic. She disappeared while trying to fly around the world.

Clarence Darrow

A famed criminal defense lawyer for Scopes, who supported evolution. He caused William Jennings Bryan to appear foolish when Darrow questioned Bryan about the Bible.

Herbert Hoover

(1929-1933) The New York Stock Market Crashes October 29, 1929 "Black Tuesday". The 20th Amendment is passed and added and the 21st Amendment is passed by 1933.

Louis Armstrong

Leading African American jazz musician during the Harlem Renaissance; he was a talented trumpeter whose style influenced many later musicians.

Charles Evans Hughes

A reformist Republican governor of New York, who had gained fame as an investigator of malpractices by gas and insurance companies and by the coal trust. He later ran against Wilson in the 1916 election.

Alfred Sloan

President of General motors, appealed to prestige, offered variety with different models and colors. introduced buying on credit

Billy Sunday

American fundamentalist minister; he used colorful language and powerful sermons to drive home the message of salvation through Jesus and to oppose radical and progressive groups.

Charles Lindbergh

United States aviator who in 1927 made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (1902-1974)

Babe Ruth

"Home Run King" in baseball, provided an idol for young people and a figurehead for America

Orville and Wilbur Wright

These brothers were bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio who built and flew the first plane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903.

Sinclair Lewis

American novelist who satirized middle-class America in his 22 works, including Babbitt (1922) and Elmer Gantry (1927). He was the first American to receive (1930) a Nobel Prize for literature.

Alice Paul

Head of the National Woman's party that campaigned for an equal rights amendment to the Constitution. She opposed legislation protecting women workers because such laws implied women's inferiority. Most condemned her way of thinking.

Andrew Mellon

Secretary of Treasury under President Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, who instituted a Republican policy of reduced government spending, lower taxes to the wealthy and higher tariffs

Huey Long

As senator in 1932 of Washington preached his "Share Our Wealth" programs. It was a 100% tax on all annual incomes over $1 million and appropriation of all fortunes in excess of $5 million. With this money Long proposed to give every American family a comfortable income, etc

John Dillinger

"Public Enemy #1", robbed 24 banks, known for his jail escapes

Douglas MacArthur

American general, who commanded allied troops in the Pacific during World War II.

John Steinbeck

American novelist who wrote "The Grapes of Wrath". (1939) A story of Dustbowl victims who travel to California to look for a better life.

Fraklin D. Roosevelt

American President during the Depression and WW II who started the New Deal programs and promised to help relieve the suffering of the poor during the Depression. Elected to Four terms as President.

Elenor Roosevelt

wife to FDR, most active first lady in history, greatly influenced the politics of the national gov't battling for the impoverished and oppressed

John Collier

Head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs who introduced the Indian New Deal and pushed congress to pass Indian Reorganization Act

J. Edgar Hoover

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who investigated and harassed alleged radicals.

Cordell Hull

FDR's secretary of state, who promoted reciprocal trade agreements, especially with Latin America

Gerald Nye

Republican of North Dakota, headed a 1934-1936 Senate investigation, which concluded that banking and munition interests, whom it called "merchants of death", had tricked the US into war to protect their loans and weapon sales to England and France

Alfred Smith

He ran for president in the 1928 election for the Democrat Party. He was known for his drinking and he lost the election to Herbert Hoover. Prohibition was one of the issues of the campaign. He was the first Roman Catholic to run for president, and it was during a time many people were prejudice toward Catholics.

Charles Coughlin

Catholic priest who used his popular radio program to criticize the New Deal; he grew increasingly anti-Roosevelt and anti-Semitic until the Catholic Church pulled him off the air.

Bernard Baruch

He headed the War Industries Board which placed the control of industries into the hands of the federal government. It was a prime example of War Socialism.

Neil Armstrong

1st person to walk on the moon; U.S. Apollo 11; July, 1969; his famous words - "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Richard Nixon

Vice President under Eisenhower and 37th President of the United States

Harry Truman

33rd President of the United States. Led the U.S. to victory in WWII making the ultimate decision to use atomic weapons for the first time. Shaped U.S. foreign policy regarding the Soviet Union after the war.

Robert Oppenheimer

United States physicist who directed the project at Los Alamos that developed the first atomic bomb (1904-1967)

Joseph McCarthy

1950s; Wisconsin senator claimed to have list of communists in American gov't, but no credible evidence; took advantage of fears of communism post WWII to become incredibly influential; "McCarthyism" was the fearful accusation of any dissenters of being communists

George Marshall

United States general and statesman who as Secretary of State organized the European Recovery Program (1880-1959)

Barry Goldwater

1964; Republican contender against LBJ for presidency; platform included lessening federal involvement, therefore opposing Civil Rights Act of 1964; lost by largest margin in history

Albert Einstein

German physicist who developed the theory of relativity, which states that time, space, and mass are relative to each other and not fixed.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He had a war on poverty in his agenda. in an attempt to win, he set a few goals, including the Great Society

George Kennan

He was an American diplomat and ambassador best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War.

Henry Kissinger

The main negotiator of the peace treaty with the North Vietnamese; secretary of state during Nixon's presidency (1970s).

Dean Acheson

2nd term (for Truman) Secretary of State. Had a "defense perimeter speech" for the Korean War

Enrico Fermi

Italian nuclear physicist (in the United States after 1939) who worked on artificial radioactivity caused by neutron bombardment and who headed the group that in 1942 produced the first controlled nuclear reaction (1901-1954)

John Foster Dulles

As Secretary of State. he viewed the struggle against Communism as a classic conflict between good and evil. Believed in containment and the Eisenhower doctrine.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Arrested in the Summer of 1950 and executed in 1953, they were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage by passing plans for the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

Joan Baez

folk singer, protest song singer, introduced Bob Dylan at Newport Folk Festival- gave him the endorsement and credibility due to her central role in the peace movement during the Vietnam War

Daniel Ellsberg

Former Pentagon official who "leaked" the Pentagon Papers

Timothy Leary

Former Harvard psychologist who experimented with psychoactive drugs (including LSD) and became a well-known advocate of their use as a way to open and expand the mind.

William Westmoreland

American General who commanded American military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak from 1964 to 1968

Stokely Carmichael

Coined the phrase "black power" and led SNCC away from a nonviolent approach.

Fannie Lou Hamer

(1917-1977) became a SNCC field worker in 1963; helped found the MFDP; left SNCC in 1966 when the organization embraced Black Power but remained active in the civil right movement in 1971; helped found the National Women's Political Caucus

Malcolm X

1952; renamed himself X to signify the loss of his African heritage; converted to Nation of Islam in jail in the 50s, became Black Muslims' most dynamic street orator and recruiter; his beliefs were the basis of a lot of the Black Power movement built on separationist and nationalist impulses to achieve true independence and equality

James Meredith

He was a civil rights advocate who spurred a riot at the University of Mississippi. The riot was caused by angry whites who did not want Meredith to register at the university. The result was forced government action, showing that segregation was no longer government policy.

Jesse Owens

African American who won 4 gold medals at Olympic games in Germany under Hitler (a blow to Nazi notions of a master race).

A. Phillip Randolph

He was the black leader of The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. He demanded equal opportunities in war jobs and armed forces during WWII. He helped encourage the end of segregation in the military, although that happened after the war.

Emmitt Till

14 year old African American who was kidnapped, beaten, and brutally killed in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman

Bob Dylan

60's musician. Part of counterculture revolution through music. anti-war and anti-government