A Better National Garden of American Heroes

So the President is doing the sort of project I actually think is nice – 250 noteworthy Americans in a statuary garden for America’s 250^th anniversary. Of course, being Trump, it isn’t a great list – although, admittedly, it did exceed my expectations. Nevertheless, here’s my own list of 250 people, if I was making the Garden. They are arranged roughly chronologically, based on their accomplishments:

 

1.     Phyllis Wheatley – Enslaved female poet

2.     Benjamin Franklin – Scientist, statesman, abolitionist, and publisher

3.     Thomas Paine – Revolutionary pamphleteer

4.     John Paul Jones – Revolutionary Naval hero

5.     Alexander Hamilton – Revolutionary and influential Secretary of the Treasury

6.     James Madison – Constitutional author

7.     George Washington – Revolutionary War general and first President of the U.S.

8.     John Adams – Revolutionary and second President

9.     Thomas Jefferson – Declaration of Independence author, polymath, third President

10.  Noah Webster – Lexicographer of American English

11.  Mary Lyon – Women’s education pioneer

12.  Sequoyah – Lexicographer for Cherokee Nation

13.  Walt Whitman – Influential poet

14.  Horace Mann – Foundational educator who advocated for public schooling

15.  Samuel Morse – Telegraph innovator

16.  Sarah Josepha Hale – Reformer and author

17.  Dorothea Dix – Reformer for mental institutions

18.  Edgar Alan Poe – Short story innovator and poet

19.  Elizabeth Blackwell – Female medical pioneer

20.  Lucretia Mott – Suffragist and Seneca Falls organizer

21.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Suffragist and Seneca Falls organizer

22.  Henry David Thoreau – Author and civil disobedience pioneer

23.  Herman Melville – Iconic author

24.  Eunice Foote – Climate scientist who discovered greenhouse effect

25.  Sojourner Truth – Groundbreaking black feminist

26.  Frederick Douglass – Enslaved autobiographer

27.  Hariet Jacobs – Enslaved autobiographer

28.  Harriet Tubman – Underground Railroad operator

29.  Frederick Law Olmsted – Pioneering landscape architect

30.  Hariet Beecher Stowe – Abolitionist author and home economist

31.  John Brown – Abolitionist martyr

32.  Abraham Lincoln – President who guided the nation through the Civil War and abolished slavery

33.  Louisa May Alcott – Acclaimed author

34.  Ulysses S. Grant – Civil War general and President

35.  Luther Burbank – Influential horticulturist

36.  Victoria Woodhull – Suffragist and reformer

37.  Susan B. Anthony – Important suffragist

38.  Mark Twain – Iconic humorist and author

39.  Clara Barton – American Red Cross founder

40.  Josiah Willard Gibbs – Influential mathematician and physicist

41.  Alexander Graham Bell – Telephone inventor

42.  Bass Reeves – Legendary frontier marshal

43.  Annie Oakley – Exhibition sharpshooter

44.  Mary Baker Eddy – Founder of Christian Science

45.  Thomas Nast – Iconic cartoonist

46.  Sarah Winnemucca – Native rights activist

47.  John Singer Sargent – Important painter

48.  Emily Dickinson – Influential poet

49.  Henry Bergh – Founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

50.  Helen Keller – Disability advocate, suffragist, and reformer

51.  Anne Sullivan – Teacher of Keller

52.  Thomas Edison – Iconic inventor

53.  Nikola Tesla – Iconic inventor

54.  Nellie Bly – Influential journalist

55.  Mary McLeod Bethune – Suffragist and Civil Rights activist

56.  John Muir – Conservationist legend

57.  Martha Hughes Cannon – Suffragist and reformer, fought polygamy in Utah

58.  Theodore Roosevelt – President, conservationist, reformer, Nobel Laureate

59.  L. Frank Baum – Influential children’s author

60.  WEB Du Bois – Author, sociologist, Civil Rights leader

61.  Orville Wright – Flight pioneer

62.  Wilbur Wright – Flight pioneer

63.  Louis Comfort Tiffany – Iconic glass artist

64.  Zitkala-Sa – Author and Native rights activist

65.  Ida B. Wells – Journalist, suffragist, Civil Rights leader

66.  Upton Sinclair – Author and reformer

67.  Ida Tarbell – Journalist and muckraker

68.  Mother Jones – Labor leader for miners and child laborers

69.  Louis Armstrong – Jazz pioneer

70.  Jane Addams – Immigrant rights activist, Nobel Laureate

71.  Margaret ‘Molly’ Brown – Philanthropist and socialite

72.  Willis Carrier – Inventor of air-conditioning

73.  Alice Paul – Suffragist who helped get the 19^th Amendment passed

74.  Clarence Darrow – Lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union

75.  Annie Jump Cannon – Influential astronomer

76.  Jim Thorpe – Olympian and athletic icon

77.  Mary Pickford – Silent film actress and cofounder of United Artists

78.  Buster Keaton – Silent film pioneer

79.  Fanny Brice – Actress, humorist, and Follies star

80.  Jeannette Rankin – First female Congressional Representative

81.  Margaret Sanger – Founder of Planned Parenthood and supporter of birth control

82.  Duke Ellington – Legendary jazz composer

83.  Amelia Earhart – Flight pioneer

84.  Harry Houdini – Entertainer and hoax-buster

85.  Henry Ford – Industrialist and developer of mass production

86.  Edwin Hubble – Important cosmologist

87.  Margaret Mead – Influential anthropologist

88.  Emma Goldman – Radical feminist and anarchist

89.  Philo Farsnworth – Television inventor

90.  Robert Goddard – Rocket inventor

91.  Willa Cather – Acclaimed author

92.  Will Rogers – Entertainer, author and humorist

93.  Bessie Smith – Pioneering blues singer

94.  Gertrude Stein – Author and cultural icon

95.  Frances Perkins – First female Cabinet Secretary, developed Social Security

96.  Dorothea Lange – Important photographer

97.  Georgia O’Keefe – Groundbreaking modern artist

98.  Robert Johnson – Blues music icon

99.  Frank Lloyd Wright – Legendary architect

100.        Jesse Owens – Olympian and Civil Rights figure

101.        Zora Neale Hurston – Acclaimed author

102.        Walt Disney – Animator and entrepreneur

103.        Marian Anderson – Operatic and spiritual singer

104.        Irving Berlin – Iconic composer

105.        John Dewey – Educator and philosopher

106.        Martha Graham – Modern dance pioneer

107.        Judy Garland – Actress and singer

108.        Julia Morgan – Pioneering female architect

109.        Estee Lauder – Cosmologist and entrepreneur

110.        Woody Guthrie – Foundational folk musician

111.        Billie Holiday – Iconic jazz and blues singer

112.        Katharine Hepburn – Acclaimed actress

113.        Marjory Stoneman Douglas – Important conservationist

114.        Richard Rodgers – Broadway legend

115.        Oscar Hammerstein II – Broadway legend

116.        Franklin Delano Roosevelt – President who developed New Deal and led America through WWII

117.        Ansel Adams – Legendary photographer

118.        Barabara McClintock – Geneticist, Nobel Laureate

119.        Maria Tallchief – America’s first prima ballerina

120.        George Balanchine – Ballet innovator

121.        Norman Rockwell – Influential artist

122.        A. Philip Randolph – Civil Rights icon

123.        Ella Baker – Civil Rights organizer

124.        Hedy Lamarr – Actress and inventor

125.        Josephine Baker – Actress, spy, and Civil Rights figure

126.        Albert Einstein – Legendary physicist, Nobel Laureate

127.        Benjamin O. Davis Jr. – Leader of Tuskegee Airmen

128.        Dwight Eisenhower – WWII Commander and President

129.        Chester Nimitz – WWII Admiral in the Pacific

130.        George C. Marshall – Army General and originator of Marshall Plan, Nobel Laureate

131.        Robert H. Jackson – Nuremberg prosecutor and Supreme Court Justice

132.        Elanor Roosevelt – First Lady and force behind United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights

133.        Jackie Robinson – Baseball legend

134.        Maria Martinez – Groundbreaking ceramicist

135.        Ruth Asawa – Innovative sculptor

136.        Richard Feynman – Iconic physicist, Nobel Laureate

137.        John von Neumann – Mathematician, physicist, and economist

138.        Hank Williams – Country music pioneer

139.        Grace Hopper – Foundational computer programmer

140.        Margaret Chase Smith – Anti-McCarthy Senator

141.        Edward R. Murrow – Anti-McCarthy journalist

142.        Virginia Apgar – Obstetric modernizer

143.        Henrietta Lacks – Patient with unique cells that have cured millions

144.        Jonas Salk – Vaccinologist, found the cure for polio

145.        Chuck Berry – Rock and Roll pioneer

146.        Arthur Miller – Iconic playwright

147.        Mamie Till – Civil rights figure

148.        Paul Tillich – Influential theologian

149.        Eugenie Clark – Scientist, shark expert

150.        Lucille Ball – Actress, television pioneer, businesswoman

151.        Marie Tharp – Oceanographer, discovered plate tectonics

152.        Alfred Hitchcock – Groundbreaking film director

153.        Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe – International architect

154.        Walter Reuther – Labor leader and policy advocate

155.        James Baldwin – Author and Civil Rights figure

156.        Francis Oldham Kelsey – Pharmacologist and regulations pioneer

157.        Linus Pauling – Chemist and disarmament advocate, dual Nobel Laureate

158.        Robert Noyce – Microchip developer, founder of Intel

159.        Dr. Seuss – Children’s literature legend

160.        Julia Child – Innovative cook and author

161.        Johnny Cash – Influential country musician

162.        Patsy Cline – Innovative country musician

163.        Frank Sinatra – Iconic singer

164.        Ella Fitzgerlad – Important singer

165.        Stanley Kubrick – Acclaimed film director

166.        Rosa Parks – Civil Rights activist

167.        Martin Luther King Jr. – Civil Rights legend, Nobel Laureate

168.        Bayard Rustin – Civil Rights organizer

169.        Malcolm X – Civil rights icon

170.        John F. Kennedy – President, realigned the political parties

171.        Lyndon B. Johnson – President, launched Medicare and Medicaid

172.        Patsy Mink – First Asian-American female Representative, Title IX champion

173.        Hannah Arendt – Influential Political theorist

174.        Betty Friedan – Second-Wave feminist

175.        Rachel Carson – Founder of the modern Environmental movement

176.        Norman Borlaug – Agronomist, Nobel Laureate

177.        Bob Dylan – Legendary musician, Nobel Laureate

178.        Stan Lee – Comics icon

179.        Clair Patterson – Physicist and regulation pioneer against dangerous lead

180.        Larry Itliong – Farm labor organizer

181.        Dolores Huerta – Legendary labor leader and activist

182.        Billy Frank Jr. – Native rights activist

183.        Aretha Franklin – Soul music icon

184.        Thurgood Marshall – First black Supreme Court Justice

185.        Maurice Hilleman – Vaccinologist who developed MMR, hepatitis, and many others

186.        Eunice Kennedy Shriver – Special Olympics founder and philanthropist

187.        Maya Angelou – Memoirist, poet, artist, and Civil Rights activist

188.        Katherine Johnson – NASA mathematician who worked on Apollo

189.        Michael Collins – Apollo 11 crew

190.        Buzz Aldrin – Apollo 11 crew

191.        Neil Armstrong – Apollo 11 crew

192.        Muhammad Ali – Boxing legend

193.        Bruce Lee – Influential martial artist and actor

194.        Joan Didion – Acclaimed author and essayist

195.        Marsha P. Johnson – LGBT activist

196.        Judy Blume – Influential children’s author

197.        John Rawls – Political philosopher

198.        Gloria Steinem – Feminist activist

199.        Angela Davis – Radical feminist and academic

200.        Carl Bernstein – Journalist, exposed Watergate

201.        Bob Woodward – Journalist, exposed Watergate

202.        Katharine Graham – Newspaper publisher, released the Pentagon Papers

203.        Jim Henson – Puppeteer and educational television innovator

204.        Marlon Brando – Innovative actor

205.        Billie Jean King – Tennis star and LGBT activist

206.        Vera Rubin – Astronomer, discovered dark matter

207.        Stevie Wonder – R&B music icon

208.        Nam June Paik – Founder of video art

209.        Stephen Sondheim – Broadway icon

210.        Will Eisner – Influential cartoonist and graphic novel pioneer

211.        Betty Ford – First Lady, physical and mental health advocate

212.        Dolly Parton – Legendary musician and philanthropist

213.        Willie Colon – Salsa music pioneer

214.        Rita Moreno – Acclaimed actress

215.        Harvey Milk – LGBT icon, politician

216.        Judith Heumann – Disability rights activist

217.        Pauli Murray – Activist and priest

218.        Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Lawyer and Supreme Court Justice

219.        Sandra Day O’Connor – First female Supreme Court Justice

220.        Philip Johnson – Postmodern architect

221.        Wilma Mankiller – First female tribal leader

222.        Toni Morrison – Influential author, Nobel Laureate

223.        Isabel Allende – Important author and exile

224.        Tina Turner – Iconic rock singer

225.        Florence Griffiths Joyner – Track star, record-holder

226.        Oprah Winfrey – Television innovator and entrepreneur

227.        Maya Lin – Sculptor, designed Vietnam Memorial

228.        Dian Fossey – Primatologist and martyr for conservation

229.        Judith Butler – Pioneer in gender studies

230.        Kimberle Crenshaw – Important developer of racial studies

231.        Claudia Goldin – Economist, Nobel Laureate

232.        Bill Gates – Microsoft cofounder and computing innovator

233.        Stephen Spielberg – Influential film director

234.        Elizabeth Loftus – Psychologist of memory

235.        Frank Gehry – Deconstructivist architect

236.        Steve Jobs – Apple cofounder and computing innovator

237.        Jay Z – Rap music icon

238.        Beyonce – Influential and highly acclaimed musician

239.        Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson – Journalist, exposed Catholic abuse scandal

240.        Meryl Streep – Legendary film and television actress

241.        Louise Gluck – Poet, Nobel Laureate

242.        Kara Walker – Influential artist

243.        Henry Louis Gates Jr. – Prominent black studies scholar and influential genealogist

244.        Audra McDonald – Legendary stage actress

245.        Barack Obama – First black President, Nobel Laureate

246.        Hillary Clinton – First Lady, Senator, and Presidential nominee

247.        Nancy Pelosi – First female Speaker of the House

248.        Tarana Burke – Activist against sexual violence

249.        Alex Honnold – Rock climbing legend

250.        Shoshana Zuboff – Economist, charted ‘surveillance capitalism’

Literature Laureates: The First 75 Years of the Nobel Prize

I am a big fan of the Nobel Prize for Literature. I have carefully tracked down works from every laureate, and read them. (Some were easier than others.) In the early years of the prize, prior to WWII, few notable authors were feted: the omissions of major names is more notable. As such, I wouldn’t be surprised that it was overly focused on Europe and the ‘West’ in those years. 
But the nominees are now public, and that inspired me to do some digging.

Between 1901 and 1975, the most recent year of public nominations, I went through and tracked non-NATO-ish nominees. That is, nominees who weren’t from Europe, the U.S. and Canada, or Australia and New Zealand.

The first nominee to fit this profile was all the way back in 1906. South America dominated in the early years. Asia dominated the later years. Africa was, well into the 1970s, barely represented at all. Without further ado, here’s my data and analysis:

Asia: 60 nominees, total. First winner: Rabindranath Tagore (India), 1913 - first non-NATO-ish winner overall. Other winners nominated in this period: Yasunari Kawabata (Japan), 1961; Kenzaburo Oe (Japan), 1994. Superlatives: First Chinese nomination - 1939; First Japanese nomination - 1947; First Vietnamese nomination - 1969.

South America: 44 nominees, total. First Winner: Gabriela Mistral (Chile), 1945. Other winners nominated in this period: Pablo Neruda (Chile), 1971; Miguel Asturias (Guatemala), 1967; V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad), 2001; Octavio Paz (Mexico), 1990; Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia), 1982. Superlatives: First non-NATO-ish nominee - Pedro Pablo Figueroa (Chile), 1906; First-ever black nominee - Jean Price-Mars (Haiti), 1960.

Africa: 7 nominees, total. First winner: Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt), 1988. Other winners nominated in this period: Nadine Gordimer (South Africa), 1991. Superlatives: First non-NATO-ish nominee: Taha Hussein (Egypt), 1949; First - and only - black African nominee in this period - Leopold Senghor (Senegal), 1963. 

Total Non-NATO-ish Nominees: 111. Total Nobel Literature Nominees: 881.

Total Non-NATO-ish Winners (during this era): 5. Total Nobel Literature Winners (during this era): 74.

Percent of NN-ish winners (from NN-ish nominees): 5/111 = 4%

Percent of NN-ish winners (from total nominees): 5/881 = .5%

Percent of other winners (from other nominees): 69/770= 9%

Percent of other winners (from total nominees): 69/881= 7%

Percent of total winners (from total nominees): 74/881 = 8%

So what conclusions can we draw? First off, if you were a NN-ish candidate, your chances of nomination were lower: only 12% of all nominees were NN-ish. And NN-ish nominees were less likely to win: 4% versus 9% for others. Your overall odds were low - only 8% of nominees ever won - but there was a higher chance if you weren’t an NN-ish nominee.

It also shows that the selection had a strong bias. From the initial NN-ish nominee of 1906, most years there were NN-ish nominees - especially after WWI, and very especially after WWII. Asia picks up significantly towards the end of the run: Between 1965 and 1975 there were 41 nominees. Only 1 of those, Kenzaburo Oe, got the prize. 

Consider other candidates nominated in that ten year span, and the odds are far greater: Gunther Grass (1999), Saul Bellow (1976), Claude Simon (1985), Patrick White (1973), Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1970), Elias Canetti (1981), William Golding (1983), Odysseas Elytis (1979), Vicente Aleixandre (1977), Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978), Czeslaw Milosz (1980), and Harold Pinter (2005). 12 winners out of ten years of nominations. 

Furthermore, things are particularly bleak for Africa, and black authors generally. Of the 7 African nominees, two were white South Africans, and three were Egyptian. In 1975 Chinua Achebe was nominated, in 1974 Ralph Ellison of the USA, in 1971 James Baldwin of the USA, in 1969 Aime Cesaire, alongside the two aforementioned. A total of 6 nominees out of 881 - around half of one percent. 

Even women - significantly overshadowed - did better: 89 women were nominated (10% of nominees), and 8 women won during this period - roughly twice as likely as the NN-ish nominees’ half a percent who went on to win.

After all this analysis, we can say that 1) far more nominees should have been NN-ish, and that 2) those who were nominated were typically passed over for other nominees from Europe and the United States. This suggests that the Nobel committee’s bias wasn’t due to a lack of nominees – 111 in 75 years, but a cultural bias against people were non-NATO-ish.

Which… I mean, I had sort of assumed, but I’d kept the door open, mentally, that maybe there just weren’t a lot of nominees from South America, Asia, or Africa…? But that turned out to be true only for Africa. This is why I’m now balancing the Nobels with the Neustadt Prize, which does a much, much better job on awarding NN-ish authors: 15/29 – fully half of the laureates. And around 14% are black, and a quarter are women – all more representative of global literature than the Nobel.

2026 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts

Life with a near-two-year-old is rewarding and challenging. One challenge was that I had to forgo my usual theater screening of the animated short nominees. This was a serious bummer, because it's a tradition I hold dear, but scheduling just didn't work out.

As a silver lining, 4 of the 5 shorts are available to watch on YouTube, and, since they're all under 20 minutes, they are easy to access. Here, then, are the four I was able to watch:

Forevergreen

Blehhhhhh. Like The Giving Tree, but somehow even worse? A bear is raised by a tree, and then there's some really heavy-handed Christian symbolism, which, just to hit you over the head, they make even more explicit by quoting the Gospel at the end of the short. Not bad animation, but a hackneyed plot, and a trite tale. I really hope this doesn't win.

Retirement Plan

This seems to be the one the money's on to win, and I can see why: it's legitimately funny, and just poignant enough without straying into cloying. The animation style is nice, too, if not overwhelmingly interesting or anything. Wouldn't mind at all if it won. 

Papillon

A visually impressive undertaking, this tells the real story of a Jewish Middle Eastern man who represented France in swimming in the years leading up to WWII. A sort of Jesse Owens figure, I appreciated the pastels and almost Gaugin-like style, especially when focused on his family and tropics. Would not mind at all if this won.

The Girl Who Cried Pearls

This is a beautiful piece of animation - and visually more captivating than the rest, with a stop-motion marionette style. The story-telling is also possibly the best of the set - although this was an admittedly strong year for three of the four. Slightly rooting for this one, but only a hair more than Retirement Plan and Papillon.

And that's it. If The Three Sisters ends up winning... Well, I guess I'll have to hope they put it online.

NaNoReMo 2026

Late start this year! I was reading a book that was leant to me, the fantastic Wolf Hall, and only just finished it yesterday. So whether I get through my NaNoReMo book by the end of March, or a couple weeks into April - I am giving myself a bit of grace.

NaNoReMo stands for 'National Novel Reading Month' - an idea I came across from the superlative John Wiswell. I do not think he does it anymore, but the premise I still find valuable: Find a novel you've always meant to read, set aside March, and read it. Check that tome off your bucket list, or that genre work you've heard good things about, the classic everyone's supposed to get to - and finish it before the month's end.

This year I am reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin:

Like many a high school student, I was wrecked by her famed short story 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas'. Now I am finally going to give her novel-length work a shot, with a sci-fi classic. Wish me luck - and good luck on your own NaNoReMo challenge.