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 Guerilla during the Civil War

“Buffalo Bill“ Cody

His shows toured the Easter U.S. and Europe

Featuring “Cowboy and Indian” battles

Cornelius Vanderbilt

American business man and Philanthropist

“Vanderbilt University“

Andrew Carnegie

Led the Expansion of 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

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)World

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 NY Journal

Completely against NY world

Led to “yellow journalism“

Susan B. Anthony

Leader of early women’s suffrage movement (1870’s)

Alice Paul

Leader of movement in 1920s

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 One

American Expedition 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 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 Suktan 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. Scoped 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 buisnessman

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 sreuck 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

Servedd as the first chaor of the ON Commission on Human Rights

Oversaw the drafting of the Universal Decleration 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