Most Influential U.S. Americans
Helen Keller
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. She became the first blind-deaf person to effectively communicate with the sighted and hearing world.
Harvey Cushing
Harvey Williams Cushing was an American neurosurgeon, pathologist, writer, and draftsman. A pioneer of brain surgery, he was the first exclusive neurosurgeon and the first person to describe Cushing’s disease.
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Jesse Owens
James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games. Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifetime as “perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history”.
Duke Ellington
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director in history.
John Steinbeck
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music.
Jim Henson
Louis Armstrong
Louis Daniel Armstrong, nicknamed “Satchmo”, “Satch”, and “Pops”, was an American trumpeter and vocalist. Armstrong’s influence extended far beyond jazz; the energetic, swinging rhythmic momentum of his playing was a major influence on soloists in every genre of American popular music.
Amelia Earhart
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley, often referred to mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Known as the “King of Rock and Roll”, he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century.
Sandra Day O’Connor
Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American children’s author and cartoonist. He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss.
Oprah Winfrey
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American business magnate, inventor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a member of The Walt Disney Company’s board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar; and the founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT.
Al Gore
Ruby Bridges
Ruby Nell Bridges Hall is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960.
Angela Davis
Angela Yvonne Davis is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. Davis was a longtime member of the Communist Party USA and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton served as the First Lady of the United States to the 42nd President, Bill Clinton. She went on to become a U.S. Secretary of State and U.S. Senator from New York. In the 2008 election, Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party’s nominee for president in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party.
Herman Melville
William Faulkner
What are William Faulkner’s most famous works? William Faulkner wrote numerous novels, screenplays, poems, and short stories. Today he is best remembered for his novels The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctuary (1931), and Absalom, Absalom
Malcolm X
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. Murrow invented radio news, as we know it and was the standard-bearer of journalism, ethics, and reporting. Many consider him the father of broadcast journalism.