Portal:United States/Selected biography

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Selected society biographies list

1–25

Selected biography 1

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Samuel Adams
brewer, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Adams was instrumental in garnering the support of the colonies for rebellion against Great Britain, eventually resulting in the American Revolution, and was also one of the key architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped American political culture
.

Born in

Stamp Act of 1765. Adams played a prominent role during protests against the Stamp Act, and in the events of the Boston Tea Party in 1773. He participated in the Continental Congress. He also advocated the adoption of the Declaration of Independence at the Second Continental Congress
.

Selected biography 2

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Calvin Coolidge
small-government conservative
.

In many ways Coolidge's style of governance was a throwback to the passive presidency of the nineteenth century. He restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predecessor's administration, and left office with considerable popularity. As his biographer later put it, "he embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength."

Selected biography 3

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Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was the thirty-eighth President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the fortieth Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974. He was the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, and became President upon Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. Ford was the fifth U.S. President never to be elected for the position of President, but the only U.S. President to not even be elected as Vice President or President.

As president, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, marking a move toward détente in the Cold War, even as South Vietnam, a former ally, was invaded and conquered by North Vietnam. Ford did not intervene in Vietnamese affairs, but did help extract friends of the U.S. Domestically, the economy suffered from inflation and a recession under President Ford. One of his more controversial decisions was granting a presidential pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. In 1976, Ford narrowly defeated Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, but ultimately lost the presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

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Barack Obama
African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned after his election
to the presidency in November 2008.

A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

As president, Obama signed

Afghanistan, and signed an arms control treaty with Russia. In October 2009, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate
.

Selected biography 5

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Rosa Parks
Civil Rights Movement
".

On December 1, 1955, Parks became famous for refusing to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. This action of civil disobedience started the Montgomery bus boycott, which is one of the largest movements against racial segregation. In addition, this launched Martin Luther King Jr., who was involved with the boycott, to prominence in the civil rights movement. She has had a lasting legacy worldwide.

Although Parks' autobiography recounts that some of her earliest memories are of the kindness of white strangers, her situation made it impossible to ignore racism. When the Ku Klux Klan marched down the street in front of her house, Parks recalls her grandfather guarding the front door with a shotgun. The Montgomery Industrial School, founded and staffed by white northerners for black children, was burned twice by arsonists, and its faculty was ostracized by the white community.

Parks received most of her national accolades very late in life, with relatively few awards and honors being given to her until many decades after the Montgomery bus boycott. For example, the Rosa Parks Congressional Gold Medal bears the legend "Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights Movement".

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Selected biography 8

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Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was the thirty-second President of the United States. Elected to four terms in office, he served from 1933 to 1945, and is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms of office. He was a central figure of the 20th century during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war.

During the

SEC. One of his most important legacies is the Social Security system
.

Roosevelt won four presidential elections in a row, causing a realignment political scientists call the

Conservatives vehemently fought back, but Roosevelt usually prevailed until he tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937. Thereafter, the new Conservative coalition successfully ended New Deal expansion; during the war it closed most relief programs like the WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps
, arguing unemployment had disappeared.

Selected biography 9

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Theodore Roosevelt
Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became President of the United States at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York
, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. Roosevelt prided himself on being a rough and tumbled man. This was partly because as a child he suffered from sever asthma. As he outgrew his ailments he took on masculine challenges such as boxing, wrestling, and of course, his favorite pastime, hunting. His last name, often mispronounced, is, per Roosevelt, "pronounced as if it were spelled "Rosavelt"— in three syllables, the first syllable as "Rose."

As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish–American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in 1899. He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.

Selected biography 10

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Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the thirty-third President of the United States (1945–1953). As vice president, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

During World War I he served as an

artillery officer. After the war he became part of the political machine of Tom Pendergast and was elected a county judge in Missouri and eventually a United States Senator. In 1945, Roosevelt replaced Henry A. Wallace
as vice president with Truman for Roosevelt's fourth term.

As president, Truman faced challenge after challenge in domestic affairs. The tumultuous reconversion of the

nuclear weapons in combat, the founding of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Truman Doctrine to contain communism, the beginning of the Cold War, the creation of NATO, and the Korean War. Corruption in Truman's administration reached the cabinet and senior White House staff. Republicans made corruption a central issue in the 1952 campaign
.

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George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.

The eldest son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush and a member of the Bush family, he flew warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard in his twenties. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball before being elected governor of Texas in 1994. As governor, Bush successfully sponsored legislation for tort reform, increased education funding, set higher standards for schools, and reformed the criminal justice system. He also helped make Texas the country's leading producer of wind-powered electricity. In the 2000 United States presidential election, he won over Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore, despite losing the popular vote after a narrow and contested Electoral College win that involved a Supreme Court decision to stop a recount in Florida. (Full article...)

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Hillary Rodham Clinton
2016 U.S. presidential election
, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party and the first woman to win the popular vote for U.S. president.

Raised in

Lewinsky scandal, which led her to issue a statement that reaffirmed her commitment to the marriage. (Full article...
)

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Bill Clinton
Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992. Clinton, whose policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy, became known as a New Democrat
.

Clinton was born and raised in

Baby Boomer generation. (Full article...
)

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Ted Kennedy
second most senior member of the Senate, and the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. For many years the most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, he was the son of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassinations, and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy
.

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Pat Nixon
Thelma Catherine Ryan "Pat" Nixon (March 16, 1912 – June 22, 1993) was the wife of former President Richard Nixon and the First Lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974. She was commonly known as Pat Nixon.

As First Lady, Pat Nixon promoted a number of charitable causes including

volunteerism and oversaw the collection of more than 600 examples of historic art and furnishings for the White House, an acquisition larger than that of any other administration. She also encouraged women to run for political offices and became the most traveled First Lady in U.S. history up to that time, visiting about eighty nations; she was the first First Lady to visit a combat zone. Pat's tenure ended when, after being re-elected in the landslide victory of 1972, President Nixon resigned two years later amidst the Watergate scandal
.

Pat's public appearances became rarer in her later life. She suffered two strokes within ten years of returning to California and was later diagnosed with lung cancer. She died in 1993.

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Michelle Obama (center)
first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017, being married to former president Barack Obama
.

Raised on the

South Side of Chicago, Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. In her early legal career, she worked at the law firm Sidley Austin where she met her future husband. She subsequently worked in nonprofits and as the associate dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago. Later she served as vice president for Community and External Affairs of the University of Chicago Medical Center. Michelle married Barack in 1992 and they have two daughters. (Full article...
)

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George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was the first President of the United States, (1789–1797), after leading the Continental Army to victory over the Kingdom of Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).

Washington was chosen to be the

French allies, he held together a tenuous army and a fragile nation amid the threats of disintegration and failure. Following the end of the war in 1783, Washington retired to his plantation on Mount Vernon
.

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John McCain
United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama
.

McCain was a son of Admiral

ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he almost died in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. While on a bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder over Hanoi in October 1967, McCain was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture and refused an out-of-sequence early release. During the war, he sustained wounds that left him with lifelong physical disabilities. McCain retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona. (Full article...
)

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Oil sketch of Daniel Boone by Chester Harding, the only portrait of Boone painted from life.
Daniel Boone was an American pioneer and hunter whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky. Despite resistance from American Indians, for whom Kentucky was a traditional hunting ground, in 1775 Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. There he founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Before the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone.

Boone was a militia officer during the American Revolutionary War, which in Kentucky was fought primarily between settlers and British-allied American Indians. Boone was captured by Shawnees in 1778 and adopted into the tribe, but he escaped and continued to help defend the Kentucky settlements. He was elected to the first of his three terms in the Virginia General Assembly during the war, and fought in the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782, one of the last battles of the American Revolution. Boone worked as a surveyor and merchant after the war, but he went deep into debt as a Kentucky land speculator. Frustrated with legal problems resulting from his land claims, in 1799 Boone resettled in Missouri, where he spent his final years.

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Portrait of Jim Bowie by George Peter Alexander Healy c. 1820
Jim Bowie played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution, culminating in his death at the Battle of the Alamo. Countless stories of him as a fighter and frontiersman, both real and fictitious, have made him a legendary figure in Texas history.

His rise to fame began in 1827 on reports of the

Rapides Parish with a large knife. This and other stories of Bowie's prowess with the knife led to the widespread popularity of the Bowie knife
.

Bowie's reputation was cemented by his role in the Texas Revolution. After moving to Texas in 1830, Bowie became a Mexican citizen and married the daughter of the vice governor of the province. At the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, Bowie joined the Texas militia, leading forces at the

Battle of Concepcion and the Grass Fight. In January 1836, he arrived at the Alamo, where he commanded the volunteer forces until an illness left him bedridden. Bowie died with the other Alamo defenders on March 6
. Despite conflicting accounts of the manner of his death, the "most popular, and probably the most accurate" accounts maintain that he died in his bed after emptying his pistols into several Mexican soldiers.

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McClintock's microscope and ears of corn on exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History.
genetic information. She was recognized as among the best in the field, awarded prestigious fellowships, and elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences
in 1944.

During the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock discovered

transposons and used it to demonstrate that genes are responsible for turning physical characteristics on and off. She developed theories to explain the suppression and expression of genetic information from one generation of maize plants to the next. Due to skepticism of her research and its implications, she stopped publishing her data in 1953. (Full article...
)

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Holmes in about 1853
Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
(1858). He is recognized as an important medical reformer.

Surrounded by Boston's literary elite—which included friends such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell—Holmes made an indelible imprint on the literary world of the 19th century. Many of his works were published in The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine that he named. For his literary achievements and other accomplishments, he was awarded numerous honorary degrees from universities around the world. Holmes's writing often commemorated his native Boston area, and much of it was meant to be humorous or conversational. Some of his medical writings, notably his 1843 essay regarding the contagiousness of puerperal fever, were considered innovative for their time. He was often called upon to issue occasional poetry, or poems written specifically for an event, including many occasions at Harvard. Holmes also popularized several terms, including "Boston Brahmin" and "anesthesia".

More...

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Sylvanus G. Morley; taken c.1912 in Copan, Honduras.
Maya hieroglyphic writing
. He also wrote popular accounts on the Maya for a general audience.

To his contemporaries, "Vay" Morley was one of the leading Mesoamerican archaeologists of his day. Although more recent developments in the field have resulted in a re-evaluation of his theories and works, his publications, particularly on calendric inscriptions, are still cited. In his role as director of various projects sponsored by the Carnegie Institution, he oversaw and encouraged many others who later established notable careers in their own right. His commitment and enthusiasm for Maya studies helped inspire the necessary sponsorship for projects that would ultimately reveal much about ancient Maya civilization.

Morley also conducted espionage in Mexico on behalf of the United States during World War I, but the scope of those activities only came to light well after his death. His archaeological field work in Mexico and Central America provided suitable

cover for his work with the United States' Office of Naval Intelligence investigating German activities and anti-American activity. (Full article...
)

26–40

Selected biography 26

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Edward Teller in 1958 as Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
hydrogen bomb," even though he did not care for the title. Teller emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, and was an early member of the Manhattan Project
charged with developing the first atomic bombs.

In his later years he became especially known for his advocacy of controversial technological solutions to both military and civilian problems, including a plan to excavate an artificial harbor in Alaska using

thermonuclear explosives. He was a vigorous advocate of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, perhaps overselling the feasibility of the program. Over the course of his life, Teller was known both for his scientific ability and his difficult interpersonal relations and volatile personality, and is considered one of the inspirations for the character Dr. Strangelove
in the 1964 movie of the same name.

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Laura Bush
first lady of Texas
from 1995 to 2000.

Born in

library science at the University of Texas at Austin
, she was employed as a librarian.

Bush met her future husband, George W. Bush, in 1977, and they were married later that year. The couple had twin daughters in 1981. Bush's political involvement began during her marriage. She campaigned with her husband during his unsuccessful 1978 run for the United States Congress, and later for his successful Texas gubernatorial campaign.

As First Lady of Texas, Bush implemented many initiatives focused on health, education, and literacy. In 1999–2000, she aided her husband in campaigning for the presidency in a number of ways, such as delivering a keynote address at the 2000 Republican National Convention, which gained her national attention. She became First Lady after her husband was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2001. (Full article...)

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George H. W. Bush
vice president from 1981 to 1989 under Ronald Reagan, and in various other federal positions
prior to that.

Born into a

chief of the Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China in 1974 and as the director of Central Intelligence in 1976. Bush ran for president in 1980 but was defeated in the Republican presidential primaries by Reagan, who then selected Bush as his vice presidential running mate. In the 1988 presidential election, Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis
.

Foreign policy drove

Clean Air Act Amendments. He also appointed David Souter and Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Bush lost the 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton following an economic recession, his turnaround on his tax promise, and the increased emphasis of foreign policy in a post–Cold War political climate. (Full article...
)

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Frederick Russell Burnham, DSO (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world traveling adventurer known for his service to the British Army in colonial Africa and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell, thus becoming one of the inspirations for the founding of the international Scouting Movement.

Burnham had little formal education, attending high school but never graduating. He began his career at 14 in the

Old West
was getting too tame, as an adult Burnham went to Africa where this background proved useful. He soon became an officer in the British Army, serving in several battles there. During this time, Burnham became friends with Baden-Powell, and passed on to him both his outdoor skills and his spirit for what would later become known as Scouting.

Burnham eventually moved on to become involved in espionage, oil, conservation, writing and business. His descendants are still active in Scouting.

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Grover Cleveland in 1903 at the age of 66
imperialism and subsidies to business, farmers or veterans. His battles for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives. His second term coincided with the Panic of 1893, a severe national depression that Cleveland was unable to reverse. It ruined his Democratic party, opening the way for Republican landslides in 1894 and 1896, and for the agrarian and silverite seizure of his Democratic party in 1896. Cleveland took strong positions and in turn took heavy criticism. His intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 to keep the railroads moving angered labor unions nationwide and angered the party in Illinois; his support of the gold standard and opposition to free silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democratic Party. Biographer Allan Nevins
wrote, "in Grover Cleveland the greatness lies in typical rather than unusual qualities. He had no endowments that thousands of men do not have. He possessed honesty, courage, firmness, independence, and common sense. But he possessed them to a degree other men do not."

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Smedley Butler
Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), nicknamed "The Fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye", was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. By the end of his career he had received 16 medals, five of which were for heroism. He is one of 19 people to twice receive the Medal of Honor, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.

Butler continued his speaking engagements in an extended tour but in June 1940 checked himself into a naval hospital, dying a few weeks later from what was believed to be cancer. He was buried at Oaklands Cemetery in West Chester, Pennsylvania; his home has been maintained as a memorial and contains memorabilia collected during his various careers.

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Frank Woodruff Buckles (born Wood Buckles, February 1, 1901 – February 27, 2011) was a United States Army corporal and the last surviving American military veteran of World War I. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917 aged 16 and served with a detachment from Fort Riley, driving ambulances and motorcycles near the front lines in Europe.

During

civilian prisoner. After the war, Buckles married in San Francisco and moved to Gap View Farm near Charles Town, West Virginia
. A widower at age 98, he worked on his farm until the age of 105.

In his last years, he was honorary chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation. As chairman, he advocated the establishment of a World War I memorial similar to other war memorials in Washington, D.C. Toward this end, Buckles campaigned for the District of Columbia War Memorial to be renamed the National World War I Memorial. He testified before Congress in support of this cause, and met with President George W. Bush at the White House. (Full article...)

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Portrait of Edwin P. Morrow by Boris G. Gordon
Augustus O. Stanley. Stanley won the election by 471 votes, making the 1915 contest the closest gubernatorial race in the state's history. Morrow ran for governor again in 1919. He encouraged voters to "Right the Wrong of 1915" and ran on a progressive platform that included women's suffrage and quelling racial violence. He charged the Democratic administration with corruption, citing specific examples, and won the general election in a landslide. With a friendly legislature in 1920, he passed much of his agenda into law including an anti-lynching law and a reorganization of state government. By 1922, Democrats regained control of the General Assembly
, and Morrow was not able to accomplish much in the second half of his term. Following his term as governor, he served on the United States Railroad Labor Board and the Railway Mediation Board.

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Gerard K. O'Neill in 197
Gerard K. O'Neill (1927–1992) was an American physicist and space activist. As a faculty member of Princeton University, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high energy physics experiments. Later he invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver. In the 1970s he developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space, including a space habitat design known as the O'Neill cylinder. He founded the Space Studies Institute, an organization devoted to funding research into space manufacturing and colonization. In 1965 at Stanford University he performed the first colliding beam physics experiment. While teaching physics at Princeton, O'Neill became interested in the possibility that humans could live in outer space. He researched and proposed a futuristic idea for human settlement in space, the O'Neill cylinder in "The Colonization of Space", his first paper on the subject. He held a conference on space manufacturing at Princeton in 1975. Many who became post-Apollo-era space activists attended. O'Neill built his first mass driver prototype with professor Henry Kolm in 1976. He considered mass drivers critical for extracting the mineral resources of the Moon and asteroids.

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Chotiner in 1950
Washington D.C.
following an auto accident in January 1974, and Nixon mourned the loss of a man he described as a counselor and friend.

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Portrait of Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Jaybird-Woodpecker War, and became the only Texas governor to call a special session to deal with a treasury surplus. Days after leaving office, Ross became president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. After his death, the Texas legislature created Sul Ross State University
in his honor.

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Dave Johnston with gas-detection instrument at Mount St. Helens, 4 April 1980
lateral blast created by the collapse of the mountain's north flank. His work and that of his fellow USGS scientists had convinced the authorities to close Mount St. Helens to the general public and to maintain the closure in spite of heavy pressure to re-open the area; their work saved thousands of lives. His story has become part of the popular image of volcanic eruptions and their threat to society, and also part of the history of volcanology. Following his death, Johnston was commemorated in several ways, including a memorial fund set up in his name at the University of Washington
, and two volcano observatories that were named after him. Johnston's life and death have been featured in several documentaries, films, docudramas and books about the eruption. Along with other people killed by the volcano, Johnston's name is inscribed on memorials dedicated to their memory.

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