Meriwether Lewis, Western Explorer
Along with William Clark, Meriwether Lewis led the first expedition through the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, revealing the landscape and nature of the...
Oleg Cassini, Fashion Designer
The elegant designs worn by Jackie Kennedy and Grace Kelly came to embody American fashion during the 1950s and 1960s. The man responsible for...
Mary Lyon, Champion of Women’s Higher Education
Mary Lyon was a progressive educator and pioneer of women’s higher education. In 1837 she founded the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley,...
Enrico Fermi, Nuclear Physicist
Enrico Fermi’s pioneering work in the field of nuclear fission won him a Nobel Prize, and ushered in the nuclear age. His discoveries led...
Alex Haley, Author of “Roots”
Characterized by his slow, honeyed voice, Alex Haley was one of America’s most popular oral and written storytellers. His timeless novel “Roots” illuminates and...
Gabriel García Márquez, Author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
Gabriel García Márquez grew up in a home filled with storytelling and the supernatural. His seminal work of fiction, “One Hundred Years of Solitude,”...
Robert Louis Stevenson, Author of “Treasure Island”
Although weak in health himself, Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson will always be associated with vigorous adventure, thanks to such thrilling tales as “Kidnapped”...
Noah Webster, Educator and Dictionary Writer
Noah Webster was a pioneering thinker devoted to books and learning. After the American Revolution, he set out to help the United States develop...
Saul Bellow, American Novelist
“The backbone of 20th-century American literature”—this was novelist Philip Roth’s assessment of Saul Bellow. His struggle with modernism, his Jewish upbringing, his feelings of...
Eugene Debs, Labor Leader
Eugene V. Debs spearheaded labor movements, led the American Socialist Party and is remembered today for being an agitator who never shied from passionately...
