American People

Joseph Glidden

American Farmer

Patented Barbed Wire

Ended open ranged ranching

Cyrus McCormick

Credited as the Inventor of the Mechanical Reaper

Ulysses S. Grant

18th President of the United States

Led efforts to remove the vestiges of Confederate Nationalism

Defeated the KKK

Sitting Bull

Worked as a performer with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West

Feared the use of his influence would support the Ghost Dances

Indian service agents ordered his arrest

George Armstrong Custer

Dispatched to the West in the American Indian Wars

Appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment

Crazy Horse

Lakota war leader of the Oglala band of Sioux

George Washington Carver

Reputation based on research into (and promotion of) alternative crops

Chief Joseph

Leader of a band of the Nez Perce

Jesse James

Infamous “wild west“ gang leader and outlaw

Confederate Guerrilla during the Civil War

“Buffalo Bill” Cody

His shows toured the Eastern U.S. and Europe

Featuring “Cowboy and Indian” battles

Cornelius Vanderbilt

American businessman and Philanthropist

“Vanderbilt University“

Andrew Carnegie

Led the Expansion of the American Steel Industry

The “Gospel of Wealth“ in 1889

John D. Rockefeller

Founder of Standard Oil Company

J.P. Morgan

Leading Financier of  the Progressive Era

Henry Ford

Founder of Ford Motor Company

Mark Twain

American Author

Coined the term “Gilded Age”

Wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

Alexander Graham Bell

Credited with inventing the first telephone

Thomas Edison

Developed the phonograph, Motion picture camera, and the long-lasting practical light bulb

“The Wizard of Menlo Park“

William Jennings Bryan

Advocate of Bimetallism

Delivered “Cross of Gold Speech“

Led attacks on Darwinism and Evolution

William McKinley

Led the nation to victory in the Spanish-American War

Raised protective tariffs to promote American Industry

Samuel Gompers

Founded the American Federation of Labor(AFL)

Promoted collective bargaining to secure shorter hours and higher wages for workers

Eugene Debs

American Union Leader

A founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies)

Candidate of the Socialist Party of America for president five times

William Tweed

Most notable for being the “Boss“ of Tammany Hall

Upton Sinclair

Famous for the classic Muckraking novel, The Jungle, in 1906

Exposed Meat Packing Industry

Ida Tarbell

A “muckracker“ who pioneered investigative journalism

1904 book The History of The Standard Oil Company

Jane Adams

Founded the Hull House in Chicago, Illinois

Provided education, food, medical care, and employment training to the poor

Robert LaFollette

Achieved the most significant progressive state government reform in America, known as the “Wisconsin Idea.“

Booker T. Washington

Gave a speech in Atlanta that became known as the Atlanta Compromise

Speech called for a black progress through education and entrepreneurship

W.E.B DuBois

Leader of the Niagara Movement

Demanded immediate, full civil rights and increased political representation

John Muir

Founder of the conservation movement

“Father of National Parks“

Created parks such as Yosemite, Mt. Rainier, and the Grand Canyon

Theodore Roosevelt

Led the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War

Famous for his actions during the Battle of San Juan Hill

Took the presidency after William McKinley’s assassination

William Howard Taft

10th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Elected president in 1908

Defeated by Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 election

William Randolph Hearst

Owned the New York Journal

Competed against the New York world

Led to “yellow journalism“

Susan B. Anthony

Arranged for Congress to be presented with an amendment giving women the right to vote, became the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

Alice Paul

The main leader of the 1910s campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote

Hunger strikes in prison

Carrie Nation

Radical Member of the temperance movement

Opposed alcohol before Prohibition

Attacks establishments with a hatchet

Hellen Keller

Deaf and Blind

Learned how to read and write

A founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU)

Woodrow Wilson

Re-elected in 1916, using the quote “he kept us out of war“

The second term was dominated by America's joining World War I

Issued principles of peace: “The Fourteen Points“

Went to Paris to promote the formation of a League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles

John “BlackJack” Pershing

United States General of World War I

American Expeditionary Forces

Margaret Sanger

Popularized birth control

Opened the first birth control clinic in the United States

Jeanette Rankin

The First woman elected to Congress

Only member of congress to vote against the United States participation in both World War I and World War II

The Wright Brothers(Orville and Wilbur)

Invented and built the world’s first successful airplane

Made the first controlled, powered, and sustained human flight on December 17th, 1903

Goerge Herman “Babe” Ruth

Nicknamed “The Bambino” and “The Sultan of Swat”

Broke the MLB Single-Season home run record in 1919

Langston Hughes

Poet and activist

Best Known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance

Helped to develop a unified African-American Culture

Earnest Hemingway

Author

Inspired by the lost children

Wrote a “Farewell to Arms” and “From When the Bell Tolls“

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

One of the most widely cited U.S. Supreme Court Justices in history

“Clear and present danger“ opinion in the 1919 case of Schenck V. United States

Sacco and Vanzetti

Italian immigrant anarchists accused of a 1920 robbery/murder

Convicted largely due to the Red Scare fears and anti-immigrant bias

Louis Armstrong

Jazz trumpeter

One of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to “cross over.“

Skin color was second to his music in an America that was racially divided

Charles Lindbergh

Rose to world fame as the result of a solo nonstop flight in May 1927

Single-seat, Single-engine plane, Spirit of St. Louis

Clarence Darrow

Leading attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union

Represented John T. Scopes in the Scopes “Monkey“ trial in 1925

Duke Ellington

Leader of Jazz Orchestra
Gained fame through his orchestra’s appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem

Billy Sunday

Left baseball for the Christian ministry

Strong supporter of the Prohibition

Al Capone

Gangster and businessman

Attained notoriety during the Prohibition era in Chicago

Calvin Coolidge

President of the United States from 1923 to 1929

Advocate of smaller government and laissez-faire economics

Herbert Hoover

Wall Street crash of 1929 struck less than 8 months after he took office

Tried to ensue the Great Depression with modern government works

Hoover Dam

Did not believe in providing direct relief to individuals due to the Great Depression

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Instituted the New Deal

Major surviving programs include: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Social Security

Declared war on Japan and Germany after Pearl Harbor

Ordered the internment of 100,000 Japanese American Civilians

John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath dealt with the Great Depression, poverty, and issues relating to migration farther west from the Dust Bowl

Eleanor Roosevelt

Served as the first chair of the ON Commission on Human Rights

Oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Father Charles Coughlin

Opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal“ policies and opposed American involvement in World War II

Radio Broadcast and newsletter, Social Justice, criticized American involvement in World War II was eventually censored during wartime

Huey Long

Opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal“ policies did not do enough to alleviate the issues of the poor or tackle the Depression

Developed his own solution called the “Share Our Wealth“ program

Dwight D. Eisenhower

He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch and the successful invasion of France (D-Day) and Germany

Became the first supreme commander of NATO.

He was the 34th President of the United States.

Harry S. Truman

Gave the order for the atomic bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

George Patton

Led U.S. troops into the Mediterranean theatre with an invasion of Casablanca during Operation Torch in 1942

Commanded the U.S. Third Army in France and Germany

Douglas MacArthur

On 25 June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War

Was selected as commander of the UN forces

Critical of Truman’s Europe-first policy and limited-war strategy — Truman removed him from his command

William Levitt

Real-Estate developer

Levitt & Sons built their first huge housing development near Hempstead, Long island named Levittown

Joseph McCarthy

Noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies inside the United States federal government

McCarthyism

George Marshall

After World War II, as Secretary of State, he advocated US economic and Political commitment to post-war European recovery

Marshall Plan

Julius & Ethel Rosenberg

Accused, convicted, and executed for being spies who provided top secret information about nuclear weapon designs to the Soviet Union

Thurgood Marshall

Lawyer for Brown V Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

Jackie Robinson

First African American to play in the major leagues in the Modern era

Rosa Parks

Her arrest sparked the Montegomery Bus Boycott, a major moment in the Civil RIghts Movement

Martin Luther King Jr.

Leader of the Civil Rights Movement who fought for equality through nonviolent protest

John F. Kennedy

Best known got his leadership during the Cold War, espiecially during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which helped prevent Nuclear War

John Glenn

First American to orbit the Earth on February 20th, 1962, aboard the Friendship 7

Neil Armstrong

Apollo 11

First human to step on the moon

Famously stated “That’s one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind”

Elvis Presley

Known as the “King of rock and roll” (usually shortened to “The King”)

Helped popularize the genre in the 1950s

A major cultural icon that influenced music, fashion, and youth culture

Malcom X

Advocated for Black ennpowerment and self defense

Originally criticized and disagreed with Martin Luther King Jr.’s strategy of nonviolent protest and racial integration

Promoted black nationalism, self defense, and separation rather than integration

Ruby Bridges

First African American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana

She was escorted to school by four federal Marshals who were sent by President Eisenhower to oversee her safety

Emmet Till

A 14-year-old African American who was lunvhed in Mississippi in 1955

Became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement

Lyndon Johnson

He created the "Great Society” as a supporter of Civil Rights and waged the war on poverty

Cesear Chevez

Led the La Causa movement: Sought to improve the lives of farm workers in the United States

Little Rock Nine

Nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957 after the Supreme Court had ordered Schools desegregated

Robert Kennedy

In 1968, he became a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency

Shortly after winning the California primary, he was assassinated

Betty Friedan

Her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique sparked a renewal of American feminism in the 1960s

Rachel Carson

1962 book Silent Spring, which attributed decline in bird populations to the pesticide DDT

Jimmy Carter

The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

Ralph Nader

known for pioneering the modern consumer protection movement in the 1960s

He is best known for his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed

Walt Disney

co-founded the “The Walt Disney Company”. He helped pioneer the American animation industry

most known for building a global entertainment empire through animated films and theme parks, including the opening of Disneyland in 1955

Ronald Reagan

His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated reducing tax rates to spur economic growth, controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, deregulation of the economy, and reducing government spending

Sam Walton

best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam's Club

Jerry Falwell

Founded the Moral Majority