Important Americans?

Who makes the cut in history?

I just finished my first draft of a U.S. History textbook, and I began to wonder: Which people made the cut? First, I counted up the people who are named, explicitly, in the book: 476 people. Then I began to break down the statistics. For example:

All 44 people who were U.S. President get a mention.

George Washington gets the most images in the book, of any person, with five. He’s followed by Richard Nixon, with three.

The only other people who get multiple images are Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Bob Dylan.

Half of the U.S. Presidents (22) have no picture at all.

Martin Luther King Jr. gets the most quotes, with three, followed by Abraham Lincoln, J. Edgar Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy, each with two. Quotes range from a sentence to a full paragraph (Of the latter: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, King's I Have a Dream speech and Letter from Birmingham Jail, and Eisenhower's Farewell Address).

The other people to be quoted are: Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Geronimo, Mark Twain, Zitkala-Sa, Emma Lazarus, HG Wells, Pete Seeger, WEB du Bois, Calvin Coolidge, Irving Berlin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Arthur Miller, Richard Nixon, Allen Ginsberg, Mario Savio, Cesar Chavez, Warren Burger, Madeline Albright, Bill Clinton, and Barrack Obama.

Of the 476, 187 are pictured.

Fourteen indigenous people are mentioned. Eight are pictured: Pontiac, Tecumseh, Sacajawea, John Ridge, Sitting Bull, Kanosh, Geronimo, and Ishi. Those not pictured are Hiawatha, Massasoit, Metacomet, Antonga, Crazy Horse, and Zitkala-Sa.

Sixty black people are mentioned. Thirty-four are pictured. This makes up 12% of all people mentioned, and 18% of all people pictured.

Forty-five people, not including the U.S. Presidents, are categorized as American politicians or political operatives or activists. Include the U.S. Presidents and the number jumps to 89. Include non-indigenous foreign political leaders and Presidents (18 mentioned), and the number jumps to 108, or fully 23% of all people mentioned.

Scientists and inventors make up 37 of the mentions, 7% of the total. 

35 mentions are authors, 32 are musicians, 17 are athletes, 12 are miscellaneous entertainers, and 8 are artists or architects. 35 are actors or actresses. The high number of entertainment figures is due to "popular culture" sections for each decade, since the 1920s. All told, artists, athletes, and entertainers make up 139 of the mentions, even more than the politicians, with 29% of the total.

 

So those are some of the fun stats. If you want to delve deeper, feel free. Named people, are, in order:

 

George Catlin – Painter

Hiawatha – Co-founder of the Iroquois confederacy

Christopher Columbus (pictured, quoted) – Spanish explorer, colonizer

Pinzon Brothers – Spanish explorers and colonizers

Theodor de Bry – Engraver

Bartolome de Las Casas – Spanish priest, historian

Cortez – Colonizer

Popé – Tewa leader

Juan Cabrillo – Spanish explorer

Sir Francis Drake – English explorer

Giovanni Verrazano – Italian explorer, sailing for France

Cartier – French explorer

Champlain – French explorer

Henry Hudson – English explorer

Sir Walter Raleigh – English explorer, colonist

John Winthrop (pictured) – English colonizer, Puritan leader

Massasoit – Leader of the Wampanoag confederacy

Metacom – Leader of the Wampanoag confederacy

William Penn – Colonist, Quaker leader

Pontiac (pictured) – Odawa leader

John Hancock – Merchant, politician

Robert Morris – Merchant, politician

George Washington (pictured 5x, quoted) – General, first President of the United States

Charles Wilson Peale – Painter

Thomas Paine – Author

Benjamin Franklin (pictured 2x) – Scientist, politician, polymath

John Adams (pictured 2x) – Lawyer, second President of the United States

Crispus Attucks – Victim of the Boston Massacre

Paul Revere – Revolutionary

Thomas Jefferson (pictured, quoted) – Politician, third President of the United States

John Dickinson (pictured) – Politician

Marquis de Lafayette (pictured) – Revolutionary

Cornwallis (pictured) – British general

Abigail Adams (pictured, quoted) – First Lady

John Ridge (pictured) – Cherokee leader

Andrew Jackson (pictured) – General, seventh President of the United States

Alexander Hamilton – Politician

James Madison – Politician, fourth President of the United States

John Jay (pictured) – Politician, Chief Justice

Gilbert Stuart – Painter

Lewis (pictured) – Explorer

Clark (pictured) – Explorer

Sacajawea (pictured) – Shoshone guide

Tecumseh (pictured) – Shawnee leader

William Henry Harrison – General, ninth President of the United States

Sally Hemmings – Slave

James Monroe – Fifth President of the United States

John Quincy Adams – Sixth President of the United States

Sarah Northrup – Wife of John Ridge

Martin Van Buren – Eighth President of the United States

John Tyler – Tenth President of the United States

Davy Crockett – Frontiersman

Winfield Scott – General

Polk – Eleventh President of the United States

Paul Cuffe (pictured) – Abolitionist

Jesus of Nazareth – Founder of Christianity

Dolly Madison – First Lady

Zachary Taylor – Twelfth President of the United States

Millard Fillmore – Thirteenth President of the United States

Queen Victoria – Queen of Great Britain

Solomon Northrup (pictured) – Slave

Eli Whitney – Inventor

Ralph Waldo Emerson (quoted) – Author

Franklin Pierce – Fourteenth President of the United States

John Brown (pictured) – Abolitionist

Nat Turner – Slave

Frederick Douglass (pictured) – Abolitionist

Roger Taney – Chief Justice

Samuel Colt – Inventor

Herman Melville – Author

Washington Irving – Author

James Fenimore Cooper – Author

Nathaniel Hawthorne – Author

Emily Dickinson (pictured) – Author

Walt Whitman – Author

Henry David Thoreau – Author

Gandhi – Indian nationalist leader

Martin Luther King Jr. (pictured 2x, quoted 3x) – Civil Rights leader

Abraham Lincoln (pictured 2x, quoted 2x) – Sixteenth President of the United States

Buchanan – Fifteenth President of the United States 11

Harriet Beecher Stowe – Author

Stephen Douglas – Politician

Harriet Tubman (pictured) – Abolitionist

Robert E. Lee – Confederate general

Ulysses S. Grant (pictured) – General, eighteenth President of the United States

William Tecumseh Sherman – General

John Wilkes Booth (pictured) – Assassin

Andrew Johnson (pictured) – Seventeenth President of the United States

Joseph Rainey – Politician

Hiram Revels (pictured) – Politician

Blanche Bruce – Politician

Rutherford B. Hayes – Nineteenth President of the United States

Sitting Bull (pictured) – Lakota leader

Buffalo Bill (pictured) – Entertainer

Geronimo (pictured, quoted) – Apache leader

Charles Darwin – British scientist

Frederick Turner – Historian

Joseph Smith – Religious leader

Brigham Young – Religious leader

Antonga – Timapanogas leader

Kanosh (pictured) – Ute leader

George Custer – General

Crazy Horse – Lakota leader

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable – Settler

Elisha Grey – Inventor

Alexander Graham Bell (pictured) – Inventor

Thomas Edison – Inventor

William Dickson – Inventor

Nikola Tesla (pictured) – Inventor

Booker T. Washington (pictured) – Educator

Robert Ingersoll (pictured) – Orator

Cornelius Vanderbilt – Tycoon

Mark Twain (pictured, quoted) – Author

John Lewis (pictured) – Farmer

JP Morgan (pictured) – Banker

John D. Rockefeller – Tycoon

Richard Hunt Morris – Architect

Zitkala-Sa (quoted) – Lakota author

Ambrose Bierce – Author

Emma Goldman (pictured) – Protestor

McKinley – Twenty-fifth President of the United States

Lucretia Mott (pictured) – Feminist

Sojourner Truth (pictured) – Feminist

Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Feminist

Susan B. Anthony – Feminist

Matthew Perry – Commodore

Emma Lazarus (quoted) – Author

Jacob Riis – Journalist

Andrew Carnegie – Tycoon

Henry Clay Frick – Tycoon

Grover Cleveland – Twenty-second and twenty-fourth President of the United States

Jane Addams – Social worker

Franz Boas – Sociologist

William James – Psychologist

John Dewey – Educator

Sigmund Freud – Austrian psychologist

Willis Carrier – Inventor

William Randolph Hearst – Journalist

Joseph Pulitzer – Journalist

Thomas Nast – Cartoonist

William Tweed – Politician

Theodore Roosevelt (pictured) – Twenty-sixth President of the United States

William Taft – Twenty-seventh President of the United States

James Garfield – Twentieth President of the United States

Henry Ford – Industrialist

Frank Gilbreth – Efficiency expert

Lilian Gilbreth – Efficiency expert

Woodrow Wilson – Twenty-eighth President of the United States

Samuel Gompers (pictured) – Labor leader

Ida Tarbell – Journalist

Upton Sinclair (pictured) – Author

John Muir – Environmentalist

Alice Paul – Feminist

Jeanette Rankin – Politician

Hattie Carraway – Politician

Margaret Sanger (pictured) – Feminist

HG Wells (quoted) – British author

Eugene Debs – Politician

Woody Guthrie – Musician

Pete Seeger (quoted) – Musician

Sanford Dole – Colonizer

Queen Liliuokalani (pictured) – Queen of Hawai’i

Orville Wright – Inventor

Wilbur Wright – Inventor

Ivy Lee – Public Relations

Clem Whitaker – Political operative

Leon Baxter – Political operative

DW Griffiths – Film director

WEB du Bois (pictured, quoted) – Civil Rights leader, Educator

Chester A. Arthur – Twenty-first President of the United States

Benjamin Harrison – Twenty-third President of the United States

Frances Folsom – First Lady

Warren G. Harding – Twenty-ninth President of the United States

Calvin Coolidge (quoted) – Thirtieth President of the United States

Irving Berlin (quoted) – Musician

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (pictured, quoted) – Thirty-second President of the United States

Langston Hughes (pictured) – Author

Al Capone – Gangster

Bugs Moran – Gangster

Duke Ellington (pictured) – Musician

Louis Sullivan – Architect

Frank Lloyd Wright – Architect

Charles Lindbergh (pictured) – Aviator

Oliver Wendell Holmes – Justice

Adolph Hitler – German dictator

Ishi (pictured) – Indigenous survivor

Scopes – Schoolteacher

Clarence Darrow (pictured) – Lawyer

William Jennings Bryan (pictured) – Politician

Philo Farnsworth – Inventor

David Sarnoff – Broadcaster

William Paley – Broadcaster

Amadeo Giannini – Banker

Charles Merrill – Financier

Herbert Hoover – Thirty-first President of the United States

John Lewis (pictured) – Labor leader

Eleanor Roosevelt (pictured, quoted) – First lady

Louis Armstrong (pictured) – Musician

Babe Ruth (pictured) – Athlete

Shoeless Joe Jackson (pictured) – Athlete

Hank Aaron – Athlete

Buster Keaton (pictured) – Actor

Al Jolson (pictured) – Actor

F. Scott Fitzgerald – Author

Harry Houdini (pictured) – Illusionist

Jesse Owens (pictured) – Athlete

Robert Johnson (pictured) – Musician

Shirley Temple (pictured) – Actress

John Steinbeck – Author

Frank L Baum – Author

Judy Garland (pictured) – Actress

Walt Disney (pictured) – Animator

Mussolini – Italian dictator

Franco – Spanish dictator

Hirohito – Japanese Emperor

Eisenhower (pictured, quoted 2x) – General, thirty-fourth President of the United States

Father Coughlin – Radio host

Huey Long – Politician

Fred Korematsu – Civil Rights activist

Charles de Gaulle – French Resistance leader, President of France

Winston Churchill (pictured, quoted) – Prime Minister of Great Britain

Robert Goddard (pictured) – Inventor

Enrico Fermi – Scientist

Robert Oppenheimer – Scientist

Chester Nimitz (pictured) – Admiral

Josef Stalin (pictured) – Soviet dictator

Harry Truman (pictured) – Thirty-second President of the United States

Greta Zimmer Friedman (pictured) – Bystander

George Marshall – General

Ralph Bunche (pictured) – Diplomat

Leo Burnett (pictured) – Advertiser

Walter Reuther (pictured) – Labor leader

Jonas Salk (pictured) – Vaccinologist

Jackie Robinson (pictured) – Athlete

Humphrey Bogart (pictured) – Actor

Ingrid Bergman (pictured) – Swedish actress

Robert Penn Warren – Author

Orson Welles (pictured) – Actor

Frank Sinatra (pictured) – Musician

William Levitt – Developer

Joseph McCarthy (pictured) – Politician

Arthur Miller (pictured, quoted) – Author

Albert Einstein (pictured) – Physicist

Werner Von Braun (pictured) – Physicist

Julius Rosenberg (pictured) – Spy

Ethel Rosenberg (pictured) – Spy

Roy Cohn – Political operative

Donald Trump (pictured) – Forty-fifth President of the United States

Joseph Welch (pictured) – Lawyer

Ray Kroc – Businessman

Ricky Nelson – Musician

Chuck Berry (pictured) – Musician

Little Richard – Musician

Fats Domino (pictured) – Musician

Bo Diddley (pictured) – Musician

Elvis Presley – Musician

Fred Koch – Political activist, businessman

Mao Zedong (pictured) – Chinese dictator

Douglas MacArthur (pictured) – General

Yuri Gagarin – Soviet astronaut

Marilyn Monroe (pictured) – Actress

Joe DiMaggio – Athlete

Johnny Unitas (pictured) – Athlete

Pete Rozelle – Commissioner

Lucille Ball (pictured) – Actress

Desi Arnaz (pictured – Actor

J. Edgar Hoover (pictured, quoted 2x) – FBI Director

Herman Hollerith – Inventor

Alan Turing – British computer programmer

Lucky Luciano – Gangster

Meyer Lansky (pictured) – Gangster

Fred Hampton (pictured) – Civil Rights leader

Jacobo Arbenz (pictured) – Guatemalan President

Rafael Trujillo (pictured) – Dominican Republican President

Fidel Castro (pictured) – Cuban President

Kennedy (pictured 2x, quoted 2x) – Thirty-fourth President of the United States

Lyndon Johnson (pictured 2x) – Thirty-fifth President of the United States

Rosa Parks (pictured 2x) – Civil Rights activist

Rodgers – Musician

Hammerstein – Musician

Emmett Till – Lynching victim

Henrietta Lacks – Medical donor

Claudette Colvin – Civil Rights activist

Malcolm X (pictured) – Civil Rights leader

Huey Newton – Civil Rights leader

Bobby Seale – Civil Rights leader

George Wallace (pictured) – Politician

Strom Thurmond – Politician

Ruby Bridges (pictured) – Student

Neil Armstrong – Astronaut

Buzz Aldrin (pictured) – Astronaut

Michael Collins – Astronaut

Khrushchev – Soviet dictator

Lee Harvey Oswald – Assassin

Jack Ruby – Assassin

Robert Kennedy – Politician

Hubert Humphrey – Politician

Richard Nixon (pictured 3x, quoted) – Thirty-sixth President of the United States

Ho Chi Minh – Vietnamese leader

Robert McNamara (pictured) – Politician

Thích Quảng Đức – Vietnamese monk

Jack Kerouac (pictured) – Author

Allen Ginsberg (pictured, quoted) – Author

Lawrence Fehrlinghetti (pictured) – Author

Michael McClure (pictured) – Author

Bob Dylan (pictured 2x) – Musician

Timothy Leary (pictured) – Educator

Hunter S. Thompson (pictured) – Author

John Lennon – British musician

Yoko Ono – British musician

Clark Kerr – Educator

Mario Savio (pictured, quoted) – Activist

Ronald Reagan (pictured) – Fortieth President of the United States

Joe Kennedy Sr. – Political operative

Gerald Ford (pictured) – Thirty-eighth President of the United States

Jimmy Carter (pictured) – Thirty-ninth President of the United States

Nancy Reagan – First Lady

George HW Bush (pictured) – Forty-first President of the United States

Bill Clinton (pictured, quoted) – Forty-second President of the United States

George W. Bush (pictured) – Forty-third President of the United States

Barrack Obama (pictured, quoted) – Forty-fourth President of the United States

Billie Jean King (pictured) – Athlete

Bobby Riggs – Athlete

Leonard Bernstein – Musician

Stephen Sondheim – Musician

Jerome Robbins – Choreographer

Lerner – Musician

Loewe – Musician

Lionel Bart – Musician

Sidney Poitier (pictured) – Actor

Harper Lee – Author

George Takei – Actor

Nichelle Nichols (pictured) – Actress

Cesar Chavez (pictured, quoted) – Labor leader

Barbara McClintock (pictured) – Scientist

Robert Noyce (pictured) – Computer programmer

Steve Jobs (pictured) – Computer programmer

Steve Wozniak – Computer programmer

Bill Gates – Computer programmer

Paul Allen – Computer programmer

Thomas Hunt Morgan – Scientist

James Watson – Scientist

Francis Crick – British scientist

Norman Borlaug – Scientist

Rachel Carson (pictured) – Scientist

Clair Patterson (pictured) – Scientist

Willard Libby – Scientist

Leakey – British anthropologists

Billy Graham – Religious leader

Paul Tillich – Religious educator

Reinhold Niebuhr – Religious educator

Jim Henson – Puppeteer

Hannah – Animator

Barbera – Animator

Rodgers – Puppeteer

Simone de Beauvoir – French feminist

Betty Friedan (pictured) – Feminist

Angela Davis (pictured) – Feminist

Shirley Chisholm (pictured) – Politician

Gloria Steinem – Feminist

Bella Abzug – Politician

Phyllis Schlafly – Political activist

George Pincus – Scientist

Dolores Huerta (pictured) – Labor leader

Larry Itliong – Labor leader

Bruce Lee (pictured) – Actor, athlete

Muhammad Ali (pictured) – Athlete

Joe Frazier – Athlete

George Foreman (pictured) – Athlete

Stevie Wonder (pictured) – Musician

Stephen King (pictured) – Author

Marlon Brando – Actor

Al Pacino (pictured) – Actor

Diane Keaton – Actress

Robert DeNiro – Actor

Chevy Chase (pictured) – Actor

Dan Ackroyd (pictured) – Actor

Jim Belushi (pictured) – Actor

Lorne Michaels (pictured) – Comedian

George Lucas – Film director

Steven Spielberg – Film director

Tom Cruise (pictured) – Actor

Magic Johnson  (pictured) – Athlete

Madonna (pictured) – Musician

Debbie Harry – Musician

Toni Morrison – Author

Oprah Winfrey (pictured) – Entertainer

Warren Burger (quoted) – Chief Justice

Salvador Allende – Chilean President

Augusto Pinochet – Chilean dictator

Bob Woodward – Journalist

Carl Bernstein – Journalist

Spiro Agnew – Politician

David Frost – British reporter

Anwar Sadat (pictured) – Egyptian President

Menachem Begin (pictured) – Israeli President

Shah – Iranian leader

Ayatollah Khomeini – Iranian leader

Barry Goldwater – Politician

Oliver North – Lt. Colonel

Betty Ford – First Lady

Mikhail Gorbachev (pictured) – Soviet leader

Saddam Hussein – Iraqi dictator

Harvey Milk (pictured) – Politician

Barney Frank – Politician

George Harrison – British musician

Osama bin Laden – Saudi terrorist

Tom Hanks (pictured) – Actor

Tony Kushner (pictured) – Author

Tupac Shakur (pictured) – Musician

Notorious BIG – Musician

Tony Hawk (pictured) – Athlete

Beyonce (pictured) – Musician

Jay Z – Musician

Brian K Vaughan – Author

Pia Guerra – Illustrator

Chris Ware – Author

Alison Bechdel – Author

Tom Brady (pictured) – Athlete

Meryl Streep (pictured) – Actress

Jon Stewart (pictured) – Comedian

Stephen Colbert – Comedian

John Oliver – British comedian

Samantha Bee – Comedian

Wyatt Cenac – Comedian

Larry Willmore – Comedian

Jordan Klepper – Comedian

Steve Carrell – Actor

Madeline Albright (quoted) – Politician

Colin Powell (pictured) – Politician

Yitzhak Rabin (pictured) – Israeli President

Yasser Arafat (pictured) – Palestinian leader

Newt Gingrich (pictured) – Politician

Monica Lewinsky – Intern

Tim Berners-Lee – Computer programmer

Al Gore (pictured) – Politician

Clarence Thomas – Justice

Anita Hill – Lawyer

Brett Kavanaugh – Justice

Christine Blasey Ford – Educator

Sam Walton – Businessman

Alan Greenspan (pictured) – Politician

Kendrick Lamar (pictured) – Musician

Leonardo DiCaprio (pictured) – Actor

Robert Downey Jr. – Actor

Chris Evans – Actor

Mark Ruffalo – Actor

Scarlet Johansson – Actress

Jeremy Renner – Actor

Chris Hemsworth – Australian actor

Chadwick Boseman – Actor

Brie Larson – Actress

Samuel L. Jackson – Actor

Michael Phelps (pictured) – Athlete

John Green – Author

Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) – Computer programmer, businenessman

John McCain – Politician

Jeff Bezos – Businessman

Warren Buffett – Businessman

Nancy Pelosi (pictured) – Politician

Mitch McConnell (pictured) – Politician

Maurice Hilleman – Vaccinologist

Trayvon Martin – Victim

Freddie Gray – Victim

Eric Garner – Victim

Bernie Sanders (pictured) – Politician

George Floyd – Victim

Breonna Taylor – Victim

Anwar al-Awlaki (pictured) – Terrorist

Edward Snowden – Whistleblower

Chelsea Manning – Whistleblower

Hillary Clinton – First Lady, politician

Vladimir Putin (pictured) – Russian President

Harvey Weinstein – Film mogul

Roger Stone – Political operative

Elon Musk – Inventor