The Top 100 by The Atlantic

1 Abraham Lincoln
He saved the Union, freed the slaves, and presided over America’s second founding.
2 George Washington
He made the United States possible—not only by defeating a king, but by declining to become one himself.
3 Thomas Jefferson
The author of the five most important words in American history: “All men are created equal.”
4 Franklin Delano Roosevelt
He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and then he proved it.
5 Alexander Hamilton
Soldier, banker, and political scientist, he set in motion an agrarian nation’s transformation into an industrial power. 你信不信此人是诗坛情种徐志摩早年的偶像之一，徐的剑桥岁月前有一段美国留学生活学习政治经济，就是想成为中国的汉弥尔顿。
6 Benjamin Franklin
The Founder-of-all-trades— scientist, printer, writer, diplomat, inventor, and more; like his country, he contained multitudes.
7 John Marshall
The defining chief justice, he established the Supreme Court as the equal of the other two federal branches.
8 Martin Luther King Jr.
His dream of racial equality is still elusive, but no one did more to make it real.

9 Thomas Edison
It wasn’t just the lightbulb; the Wizard of Menlo Park was the most prolific inventor in American history.

10 Woodrow Wilson (美国第28任总统，居然不知道）
He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy.

11 John D. Rockefeller
The man behind Standard Oil set the mold for our tycoons—first by making money, then by giving it away.
12 Ulysses S. Grant　(18任总统，最近颇受学界关注，特别是他对黑人民权的态度）
He was a poor president, but he was the general Lincoln needed; he also wrote the greatest political memoir in American history.
13 James Madison　
He fathered the Constitution and wrote the Bill of Rights.
14 Henry Ford
He gave us the assembly line and the Model T, and sparked America’s love affair with the automobile.
15 Theodore Roosevelt
Whether busting trusts or building canals, he embodied the “strenuous life” and blazed a trail for twentieth-century America.
16 Mark Twain
Author of our national epic, he was the most unsentimental observer of our national life.
17 Ronald Reagan
The amiable architect of both the conservative realignment and the Cold War’s end.
18 Andrew Jackson
The first great populist: he found America a republic and left it a democracy.
19 Thomas Paine
The voice of the American Revolution, and our first great radical.
20 Andrew Carnegie
The original self-made man forged America’s industrial might and became one of the nation’s greatest philanthropists.
21 Harry Truman
An accidental president, this machine politician ushered in the Atomic Age and then the Cold War.

22 Walt Whitman
He sang of America and shaped the country’s conception of itself.

23 Wright Brothers
They got us all off the ground.

24 Alexander Graham Bell
By inventing the telephone, he opened the age of telecommunications and shrank the world.

25 John Adams
His leadership made the American Revolution possible; his devotion to republicanism made it succeed.
26 Walt Disney
The quintessential entertainer-entrepreneur, he wielded unmatched influence over our childhood.
27 Eli Whitney（所谓的轧棉机的发明者）
His gin made cotton king and sustained an empire for slavery.
28 Dwight Eisenhower
He won a war and two elections, and made everybody like Ike.
29 Earl Warren (1953年-1969年在位的大法官)
His Supreme Court transformed American society and bequeathed to us the culture wars.
30 Elizabeth Cady Stanton　(美国早期妇女运动先驱)
One of the first great American feminists, she fought for social reform and women’s right to vote.
31 Henry Clay (内战前辩才卓越的美国参议员, 被JKF认为是美国历史上最出色的五位参议员之一)
One of America’s greatest legislators and orators, he forged compromises that held off civil war for decades.

32 Albert Einstein
His greatest scientific work was done in Europe, but his humanity earned him undying fame in America.

33 Ralph Waldo Emerson
The bard of individualism, he relied on himself—and told us all to do the same. 他可是Transcendentalism的鼻祖哦。

34 Jonas Salk　(小儿麻痹疫苗的最早发明者）
His vaccine for polio eradicated one of the world’s worst plagues.
35 Jackie Robinson　（第一位黑人棒球明星）
He broke baseball’s color barrier and embodied integration’s promise.
36 William Jennings Bryan (20世纪初著名政治运动家，反达尔文主义头头)
“The Great Commoner” lost three presidential elections, but his populism transformed the country.
37 J. P. Morgan
The great financier and banker was the prototype for all the Wall Street barons who followed.
38 Susan B. Anthony (早在1872年带领一群妇女参加总统竞选投票，遭到起诉）
She was the country’s most eloquent voice for women’s equality under the law.
39 Rachel Carson （海洋生物学家，以著作《寂静的春天》开启了环保事业）
The author of Silent Spring was godmother to the environmental movement.
40 John Dewey
He sought to make the public school a training ground for democratic life. 著名哲学家、教育家，实用主义的开山大师，胡适的老师，八卦一下，这位老师抢走了和胡适搞暧昧异国恋的Roberta.Lowitze。
41 Harriet Beecher Stowe
Her Uncle Tom’s Cabin inspired a generation of abolitionists and set the stage for civil war.
42 Eleanor Roosevelt
She used the first lady’s office and the mass media to become “first lady of the world.”

43 W. E. B. DuBois
One of America’s great intellectuals, he made the “problem of the color line” his life’s work.

44 Lyndon Baines Johnson
His brilliance gave us civil-rights laws; his stubbornness gave us Vietnam. JFK遇刺后就是他上台了，于是将美国拖入越战泥潭。

45 Samuel F. B. Morse
Before the Internet, there was Morse code. 
46 William Lloyd Garrison　(费奴主义先行者）
Through his newspaper, The Liberator, he became the voice of abolition.
47 Frederick Douglass
After escaping from slavery, he pricked the nation’s conscience with an eloquent accounting of its crimes. 凡是考过GRE的人备考士都读过关于他的文章，还记得吗？
48 Robert Oppenheimer
The father of the atomic bomb and the regretful midwife of the nuclear era. 呵呵，不知道原子弹之父罗伯特•奥本海默的人不多吧）
49 Frederick Law Olmsted　(人人都知道中央公园，就是没听说过其设计者）
The genius behind New York’s Central Park, he inspired the greening of America’s cities.
50 James K. Polk　(第十一任圈地大总统，大大改变美国版图)　
This one-term president’s Mexican War landgrab gave us California, Texas, and the Southwest.
51 Margaret Sanger (推广避孕的女战士）
The ardent champion of birth control—and of the sexual freedom that came with it.
52 Joseph Smith
The founder of Mormonism, America’s most famous homegrown faith. 就是那个妻妾成群的摩门教主，14岁时就有theophany。
53 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Known as “The Great Dissenter,” he wrote Supreme Court opinions that continue to shape American jurisprudence.

54 Bill Gates
The Rockefeller of the Information Age, in business and philanthropy alike.

55 John Quincy Adams
The Monroe Doctrine’s real author, he set nineteenth-century America’s diplomatic course. 提出所谓“门罗主义”，也是美国第一位老子当了总统儿子继任的儿子总统。

56 Horace Mann
His tireless advocacy of universal public schooling earned him the title “The Father of American Education.” 知道霍桑的人也许听说过他，这两人有点关系，他们的老婆是姐妹。
57 Robert E. Lee
He was a good general but a better symbol, embodying conciliation in defeat. 怎么说南方人还是爱他。
58 John C. Calhoun (内战前奴隶制的坚强拥护者)
The voice of the antebellum South, he was slavery’s most ardent defender.
59 Louis Sullivan (美国现代建筑奠基人，摩天大楼之父)
The father of architectural modernism, he shaped the defining American building: the skyscraper.
60 William Faulkner
The most gifted chronicler of America’s tormented and fascinating South. 南方的大文豪，那部时光错乱The Sound and THe Fury 开头让我读得头痛。
61 Samuel Gompers (劳联之父，和芝加哥劳动节起源事件领导者是一帮的)
The country’s greatest labor organizer, he made the golden age of unions possible.
62 William James
The mind behind Pragmatism, America’s most important philosophical school. 你也许不知道他，但你却可能知道小他一岁的弟弟Henry James, 美国早期著名作家。
63 George Marshall
As a general, he organized the American effort in World War II; as a statesman, he rebuilt Western Europe.
64 Jane Addams，芝加哥的人一定知道她，那房子据说还闹鬼，她是美国第一位获诺贝尔和平奖的女性。
The founder of Hull House, she became the secular saint of social work.
65 Henry David Thoreau
The original American dropout, he has inspired seekers of authenticity for 150 years. 又是先验主义大师，他笔下的自然是灵性的妙曼的，喜欢他的文字。

66 Elvis Presley
The king of rock and roll. Enough said.

67 P. T. Barnum （十九世纪的马戏大师）
The circus impresario’s taste for spectacle paved the way for blockbuster movies and reality TV.

68 James D. Watson
He codiscovered DNA’s double helix, revealing the code of life to scientists and entrepreneurs alike. 没有他发现的DNA双螺旋结构，很难想象现在的生命科学发展到什么地步。
69 James Gordon Bennett （他创办了《纽约先驱论坛报》，《国际先驱论坛报》的前身。
As the founding publisher of The New York Herald, he invented the modern American newspaper.
70 Lewis and Clark　（著名远征探险家，对美国的版图贡献巨大）
They went west to explore, and millions followed in their wake.
71 Noah Webster
He didn’t create American English, but his dictionary defined it.
72 Sam Walton
He promised us “Every Day Low Prices,” and we took him up on the offer. 呵呵，再读一遍他的名字，就是Sam's Club和Walmart。
73 Cyrus McCormick (没有他的收割机就没有美国农业现代化)
His mechanical reaper spelled the end of traditional farming, and the beginning of industrial agriculture.
74 Brigham Young
What Joseph Smith founded, Young preserved, leading the Mormons to their promised land. 很多人可能不知道声名赫赫的杨伯翰大学其实最初就是个摩门学院，杨伯翰是Joseph Smith的弟子。
75 George Herman “Babe” Ruth　(懂棒球的人都知道，可惜我不懂体育)
He saved the national pastime in the wake of the Black Sox scandal—and permanently linked sports and celebrity.
76 Frank Lloyd Wright
America’s most significant architect, he was the archetype of the visionary artist at odds with capitalism. 二十世纪上半叶著名建筑师，最经典的就是那个流水瀑布别墅Fallingwater。

77 Betty Friedan
She spoke to the discontent of housewives everywhere—and inspired a revolution in gender roles. 第二次女性主义浪潮领军人物，于是家庭主妇数量锐减。

78 John Brown (被实施绞刑的第一个废奴主义者，比较疯，所以有人将之比做terrorist
Whether a hero, a fanatic, or both, he provided the spark for the Civil War.

79 Louis Armstrong
His talent and charisma took jazz from the cathouses of Storyville to Broadway, television, and beyond. 从新奥尔良走出来的爵士音乐家。
80 Willaim Randolph Hearst
The press baron who perfected yellow journalism and helped start the Spanish-American War. 爱看时尚杂志Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Esquire, Harper's BAZZAR的人知不知道创始人是他呢？《公民凯恩》的原型。
81 Margaret Mead
With Coming of Age in Samoa, she made anthropology relevant—and controversial. 不算了解她，但是他的同门师姐的书Zora Neale Hurston全部都读过了, 她们俩的导师现代人类学之父Franz Boas更牛。
82 George Gallup
He asked Americans what they thought, and the politicians listened.　就是那个盖洛普调查了。
83 James Fenimore Cooper　
The novels are unreadable, but he was the first great mythologizer of the frontier. 美国早期的多产多元作家。
84 Thurgood Marshall
As a lawyer and a Supreme Court justice, he was the legal architect of the civil-rights revolution.
85 Ernest Hemingway
His spare style defined American modernism, and his life made machismo a cliché.
86 Mary Baker Eddy (她创建基督教科学，还是《基督教科学箴言报》的创始人。)
She got off her sickbed and founded Christian Science, which promised spiritual healing to all.
87 Benjamin Spock (他的《育儿宝典》影响了现代美国人的教子观)
With a single book—and a singular approach—he changed American parenting.
88 Enrico Fermi
A giant of physics, he helped develop quantum theory and was instrumental in building the atomic bomb.
89 Walter Lippmann (二十世纪美国最有影响力的政论家，创办了New Repulic, )
The last man who could swing an election with a newspaper column.
90 Jonathan Edwards (大觉醒运动的主要领导者之一)
Forget the fire and brimstone: his subtle eloquence made him the country’s most influential theologian.
91 Lyman Beecher　
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s clergyman father earned fame as an abolitionist and an evangelist. 你可以不知道他，但你肯定知道他的女儿斯托夫人的《汤姆叔叔的小屋》。

92 John Steinbeck
As the creator of Tom Joad, he chronicled Depression-era misery. 《愤怒的葡萄》《伊甸园之东》《人鼠之间》都值得一读。

93 Nat Turner
He was the most successful rebel slave; his specter would stalk the white South for a century. 关于他的一本小说获得1968年普利茨奖。

94 George Eastman
The founder of Kodak democratized photography with his handy rolls of film.
95 Sam Goldwyn
A producer for forty years, he was the first great Hollywood mogul. 最早的好莱坞大佬。
96 Ralph Nader　(公民政治运动家，现代消费者运动之父)
He made the cars we drive safer; thirty years later, he made George W. Bush the president.
97 Stephen Foster
America’s first great songwriter, he brought us “O! Susanna” and “My Old Kentucky Home.”　因该是美国的王洛宾。
98 Booker T. Washington
As an educator and a champion of self-help, he tried to lead black America up from slavery. 黑人政治家、教育家、作家。
99 Richard NixonHe broke the New Deal majority, and then broke his presidency on a scandal that still haunts America. 100 Herman Melville　
Moby Dick was a flop at the time, but Melville is remembered as the American Shakespeare. 传奇经历的草根作家，写起故事栩栩如生，扣人心弦，美国小孩小时候都读他。