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[ddeubel]

Atlantic a few months ago published a comprehensive list from academics of the Top 100 Americans of all time.

Here is the Top 20 (below). What surprises you? who else should be there? Who should be higher? Why?

To see the whole list of 100, go to

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200612/influentials

Surpise for me was that Kennedy (both) was not there nor in the top 100. Farnsworth as the inventor of the TV should have been there, wasn't. Also, I think Franklin should be the boss, the top honcho. Further, why not Einstein? Is this xenophobia? He did get American citizenship, didn't he? And he didn't make the top 100...

Hamiliton? I think he should be out of the top 20.

Quote:

1 Abraham Lincoln He saved the Union, freed the slaves, and presided over America�s second founding. 2 George Washington He made the United States possible�not only by defeating a king, but by declining to become one himself. 3 Thomas Jefferson The author of the five most important words in American history: �All men are created equal.� 4 Franklin Delano Roosevelt He said, �The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,� and then he proved it. 5 Alexander Hamilton Soldier, banker, and political scientist, he set in motion an agrarian nation�s transformation into an industrial power. 6 Benjamin Franklin The Founder-of-all-trades� scientist, printer, writer, diplomat, inventor, and more; like his country, he contained multitudes. 7 John Marshall The defining chief justice, he established the Supreme Court as the equal of the other two federal branches. 8 Martin Luther King Jr. His dream of racial equality is still elusive, but no one did more to make it real. 9 Thomas Edison It wasn�t just the lightbulb; the Wizard of Menlo Park was the most prolific inventor in American history. 10 Woodrow Wilson He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy. 11 John D. Rockefeller The man behind Standard Oil set the mold for our tycoons�first by making money, then by giving it away. 12 Ulysses S. Grant He was a poor president, but he was the general Lincoln needed; he also wrote the greatest political memoir in American history. 13 James Madison He fathered the Constitution and wrote the Bill of Rights. 14 Henry Ford He gave us the assembly line and the Model T, and sparked America�s love affair with the automobile. 15 Theodore Roosevelt Whether busting trusts or building canals, he embodied the �strenuous life� and blazed a trail for twentieth-century America. 16 Mark Twain Author of our national epic, he was the most unsentimental observer of our national life. 17 Ronald Reagan The amiable architect of both the conservative realignment and the Cold War�s end. 18 Andrew Jackson The first great populist: he found America a republic and left it a democracy. 19 Thomas Paine The voice of the American Revolution, and our first great radical. 20 Andrew Carnegie The original self-made man forged America�s industrial might and became one of the nation�s greatest philanthropists.

[igotthisguitar]

So blatantly elitist.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Woland]

At a minimum, John Calhoun should be out, and Eugene V. Debs should be in.

[wannago]

[VanIslander]

Reagan as Top-20 of greatest Americans? Nixon in the Top-100?

There's that Mormon founder Smith but no Ayn Rand. Why not? Such a yahoo list anyways.

Needed some women so from #30 to #42 they threw in four women reformers and Rachel Carson. All political.

Where the hell is Helen Keller? One of the greatest Americans for sure!

And where's Clara Barton, who only set up the Red Cross.

No Pocahontas or Sacajawea, okay. But where's Geronimo or Tecumseh?

No athlete except oldtime baseball players Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson? Jackie instead of Muhammad Ali?? No Mildred (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias.

Margaret Mead for sure but Betty Friedan? No female novelists like Cather or Edith Wharton, just politically-inclined folk.

Elvis Presley and Louis Armstrong. Dang, they got their musicians right! Can't argue with those two.

Disney and Goldwyn, yeah, makes sense as creators/polito types. No actors on the list. Perhaps that's the way it should be.

[freethought]

1. i think calling this list elitist is hilarious--- it's a list of the most 'elite' americans in history... OF COURSE it's elitist.

2. Grant shouldn't be on there. And if he is on there, than so should IKE. Ike, though not the greatest president, had a far more successful two terms in office than grant and also played an important military role. He also defined the US-Soviet arms race.

3. Reagan should NOT be in there. I was at a small gathering about a year ago where Colin Powell was the guest speaker. He was very forth coming when speaking and the one thing he seem to be saying was that Reagan was first cousin to the scarecrow in the wizard of Oz. On top of that. Most of the documents that have been released seem to back that perception up. It will be very interesting to see the 'true' picture when all the reagan stuff is declassified 40 years from now.

4. Henry Ford. No way he's not top 20, and I don't even like the guy.

[VanIslander]

Oprah Winfrey and Rosa Parks have been Great Americans, haven't they? (you judgemental elitist you!)

Neil Armstrong and Vince Lombardi?

Billy Graham and Bob Hope?

The list IS elitist, with some token African Americans and women, as per the academic elite from which half the top-100 list was formed.

I still don't understand how Helen Keller doesn't make a Top-100 list of Greatest Americans! unless the list is meant to be political and elitist

[ddeubel]

[wannago]

[Ya-ta Boy]

1896-Samuel Clemens learns that Hellen Keller (whom he had met two years earlier) has lost financial support for her education, and asks Henry Huttleston Rogers, vice president and director of Standard Oil to help her attend Radcliffe College. Rogers does so.

[VanIslander]

[stevemcgarrett]

Some of you need to improve your reading skills, including the OP. The list describes the "most influential," not the "top" or "best" or "greatest." Otherwise LBJ would not be on the list since his Vietnam legacy almost cancelled out his Great Society efforts. The latter, by the way, were as much the work of Hubert Humphrey and others.

[ddeubel]

[ChimpumCallao]

The #1 spot should be given to Dr. Normal Borlaug, father of the green revolution. That stupid list seems to take fame into account more so than actual greatness.

Boulag is responsible for saving the lives of a BILLION people with his research in genetic food crops. He lived with people in Mexico and India and helped them raise their crop yields and came up with new types of wheat and rice in Mexico and China. He worked tirelessly and came up with amazing innovation, and all for a good and noble cause.

It's disgusting he is not recognized nor mentioned. He did more than the whole 100 list put together.

A BILLION PEOPLE didn't starve because of his research and hands on help. The man needs a spot on the list.