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,...
Willie Nelson, Country Music Sensation
Willie Nelson, country singer-songwriter, long-haired hippie and philanthropist, has had a prolific music career. He began playing when he was 10 years old and...
Tenzin Gyatso, Tibet’s 14th Dalai Lama
Tenzin Gyatso was recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama at the age of 2. He has been serving as Tibet’s political leader since age...
Amartya Sen, Nobel-Winning Economist
Economist and philosopher Amartya Sen has been called the “Mother Teresa of economics” for helping improve the lives on the poor through his work...
Niccolò Paganini, Violinist and Composer
Playing with a skill so dazzling and in so eerie a manner that it was seen as supernatural, violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini is...
Katharine Hepburn, Legendary Actress
For more than six decades, Katharine Hepburn mesmerized audiences with her regal accent, classic beauty and exceptional acting. Her fiercely independent, unconventional persona and...
William Faulkner, American Novelist
William Faulkner, revered modernist writer, historian and sociologist, is known for capturing the raw beauty of the rural South in all its dark complexity....
Sidney Poitier, Pioneering African-American Actor
Sidney Poitier was the child of tomato farmers in the Bahamas. He moved to New York as a teenager and worked as a dishwasher...
Amelia Earhart, Record-Breaking Pilot
Amelia Earhart set the gold standard for “enlightened feminism.” She was dubbed “Lady Lindy” because of her likeness to aviator Charles Lindbergh, and because...
Dave Brubeck, American Jazz Pianist
One of America’s most revered and respected jazz and classical pianists and composers, Dave Brubeck had a prolific career spanning six decades of performing...
