Alan Axelrod - 1001 People Who Made America

H istory as a succession of events is at most only half-history. The rest is all about the people behind the events. The English essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle understood this, writing back in 1840. For, as I take it, he declared, Historyis at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.

Change men to men and women, and weve almost got it right. But that still leaves the troublesome word great .

There are a handful of American men and women just about everyone would agree deserve to be called greatbut probably not a thousand, let alone a thousand and one. Among the people who made America, some were great, some were good, others just lucky, and some downright bad, mistaken, unfortunate, and even evil. But they all merit inclusion in this book because what they did, what they made, what they thoughtand what they caused others to do, make, or thinkshaped our nation and who we are today.

The makers of America include the roster of notables any schoolteacher would recognizeJefferson, Lincoln, and the likebut they also take in figures from our cultural and pop-cultural life, from the underworld of crime, from the struggle for civil and minority rights, from politics, business, sports, entertainment, literature, and art. They range from Jesse James to Al Capone, Harriet Beecher Stowe to Betty Friedan, Harriet Tubman to Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington to George W., John Jacob Astor to Bill Gates, John L. Sullivan to Muhammad Ali, Stephen Foster to Elvis Presley, Edwin Booth to Marlon Brando, Washington Irving to Thomas Pynchon, Gilbert Stuart to Andy Warhol. Also among those nominated are the lands most consequential record breakers, including the best, the worst, the greatest, and even the meanest.

This book is arranged alphabetically rather than chronologically, but, in terms of chronology, you should know that we begin long before there was a United States or even a place called America. The first figure on our time line is Bjarni Herjulfsson, the first European to lay eyes on the New World, back in 986. He was not an AmericanHow could he have been?but, because he was the first to see America, he had had an impact on our part of the world, so he deserves a place in these pages. And that brings us to another criterion for inclusion. You dont have to be an American to have had a hand in making America. So readers will find a good many outsiders hereexplorers, mostlywhose doings were somehow very important to who we are. And being dead is not necessary for inclusion, either. Readers will find in this book plenty of people who, as of 2007, were very much with us.

Yet I still havent really answered a question readers have a right to ask. How did I happen to choose each of the 1,001 people in this book?

First, by reading a lot of history. That has given me a good idea of whos who and who was who in the American story. The majority of people in this book are the people a majority of historians think should be in such a book as this. That is, they are here by consensus.

Now, consensus is a valuable tool of knowledge, but, taken alone, it is pretty dull. So I have also looked beyond it to include some people who speak directly to me, who seem to meas an Americanimportant to America. My hunch is that a lot of readers will agree with my choices, but, even if they dont, theyll find value in arguing with me about them.

So much for content. Here are two points concerning form.

First: 1,001 people in a book the size of your hand leaves precious little space to spend much time with any one person. For each figure profiled, Ive tried to nail the essence in under a hundred words: who, what, when, and howthen on to the next.

Second: The alphabet can be an awful tyrant. A to Z, after all, is always A to Z. But that doesnt mean the reader has to knuckle under, starting with A and not stopping till Z. Go backwards or sideways, if you like. You cannot lose your way. This book is the collective biography of America. Its meant to be stimulating, entertaining, and revealing from all points of view and at any angle. Dig in where you will.

Abbey, Edward (19271989) Novelist, journalist, lecturer, and university professor Cactus Ed Abbey wrote about the American West and the environmental problems created by human exploitation of the region. Abbey often called for radical methods to remedy environmental ills. His 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, about a group of environmental vigilantes, inspired the founding of the Earth First! organization.

Abernathy, Ralph David (19261990) A close associate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abernathy was a key activist in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 19551956, which began when Rosa Parks refused to yield to a city ordinance segregating public transportation. After Kings assassination in 1968, Abernathy became leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and carried on the fight for racial equality.

Acheson, Dean (18931971) A brilliant graduate of Yale University and of Harvard Law School and private secretary to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Acheson, as undersecretary of state from 1945 to 1947, persuaded the Senate to approve U.S. membership in the newly created United Nations. He was the dominant force in shaping the Cold War policy dubbed in 1947 the Truman Doctrine, which pledged economic and military assistance to any nation fighting the expansion of Communism. With Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Acheson formulated and promoted the Marshall Plan, for the post World War II relief and rebuilding of Europe.

Adams, Abigail (17741818) Married to John Adams on October 25, 1764, Abigail advised her husband, supported the Revolution of which he was a prime architect, and took on the solo management of the family farm and Johns business affairs, not only preserving but increasing the family fortune. As her husband began work with Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence, Abigail asked him to remember the ladies and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.

Adams, Ansel (19021984) This photographers meticulously crafted large-format photographic landscapes of the American Westespecially of the nations great National Parksawakened in many Americans both a love for the photographic art and the wild beauty of the continents natural environment.

Adams, Henry (18381918) Great grandson of John Adams, Henry Adams was a journalist, historian, novelist, and educator whose 1906 autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams , presented himself as the typical man of the dawning 20th century, struggling to move from a world defined by faith and custom into one both shaped and torn by science and technology, a world in which absolute certainty had yielded to relativism and doubt. The book is one of the great spiritual and intellectual testaments of American literature.

Adams, John (17351826) The son of a shoemaker and farmer, Adams became a highly successful lawyer in Massachusetts and was among the first great champions of American independence. He was a leading member of the Continental Congress (17741777), author of his states constitution (1780), signer of the Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution (1783), first American ambassador to Britain (178588), vice president under George Washington (178997), and the nations second president (17971801). A radical in the Revolution, Adams was a conservative force after it.

Adams, John Quincy (17671848) Son of John Adams, J. Q. Adams was a formidable diplomat who, as secretary of state under President James Monroe, formulated the Monroe Doctrine, by which the president served notice on all European powers that any attempt to colonize or interfere with any state in the Western Hemisphere would be treated as an attack on the United States. As a president, Adams was a visionary, who proposed creating a national university and a national astronomical observatory, creating a federal trust for the western territories, and using federal funds to build national roads. Unique among U.S. presidents, Adams went on to serve in the House of Representatives from 1831 until his death, taking a strong stand against slavery.