Robert Howell Brooks (1937 - 2006)

Entrepreneur. He is best known as the chairman of Hooters Restaurants, who began his successful climb by selling salad dressings and other products made by Naturally Fresh Foods, a company that he founded in 1967. He also was known for his charity,  giving $2 million to Coastal Carolina University to build it’s football stadium, now […]

Brooks Adams (1848 - 1927)

Historian, Author.  The youngest child of American Diplomat and scholar Charles Francis Adams, he spent most of his childhood in England, returning to Boston Massachusetts to attend Harvard University (where he graduated in 1870).  Over the next year, he served as his father’s secretary abroad then later followed in the footsteps of his forbearers by […]

Robert Somers Brookings (1850 - 1932)

Robert worked with his elder brother for Cupples & Marston, a wood products manufacturing company. He eventually became a partner in the business at the age of 21. After turning Cupples into a leader in its industry, Brookings retired at the age of 46 and turned his attention to Washington University Corporation. He purchased many […]

Andy Adams (1859 - 1935)

Author. After living and working on the Western Frontier, he drew his experiences there to write a number of successful western novels. His first “The Log of a Cowboy” (1903), was his best known and most successful work. (bio by: Laurie)  Family links:  Parents:  Andrew Adams (1821 – 1906)  Elizabeth Elliott Adams (1821 – 1897)

Louis Alojz Adamic (1898 - 1951)

Author. Born to peasant parents at the Praproe castle, Blato, located near Grosuplje, Solvenia, his meager childhood education was obtained from the local schools and in Ljubljana where he was expelled at fifteen for taking part in student demonstrations against the ruling Austrians. He emigrated to American in 1913 and finally settled in the Croatian […]

William McLaren Bristol (1860 - 1935)

Businessman. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1887 and purchased Clinton Pharmaceutical Company in upstate New York with classmate John Ripley Myers, continuing the firm after Myers died in 1899. Bristol, Myers was not immediately profitable, but proved successful when it produced and marketed Sal Hepatica, a laxative mineral salt that reproduced the taste and […]

Forrest James Ackerman (1916 - 2008)

Author. Born in Los Angeles, California, to Carroll Wyman Cridland and William Schilling Ackerman. He attended the University of California at Berkeley, then went onto work as a movie projectionist and at odd jobs. In 1942 he enlisted into the Army where he rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant, held the position of editor […]

Ramón Acín (1888 - 1936)

Journalist, Anti-Fascist Fighter. Born in Huesca, Aragón, Spain, he began his career as a journalist for the newspaper “El Diario de Huesca” and the magazines “Don Pepito” and “L’Esquella de la Torratxa”. Later, he founded the magazine “La Ira” and began his collaboration in leftist newspapers with articles against the coup d’état of General Francisco […]

Hans Hofmann (1880 - 1966)

German-born Artist. Hofmann developed an interest in mathematics, science, music and art at a very early age. Hofmann was both an intuitive painter and a man with a profound understanding of modernism. His ideas on art developed initially during his years in Paris. From 1904 to 1914, he knew Matisse, Picasso, Braque, and Delaunay. He […]

Arunah Shepherdson Abell (1806 - 1888)

Journalist, Newspaper Publisher. Born and raised in Rhode Island, he founded the “Baltimore Sun” newspaper as a penny paper in 1837.  Throughout the 19th century, Baltimore, Maryland had a number of newspapers, many of them were overtly partisan, such as the pro-Republican “Baltimore American”. Arunah’s “Sun”, however, despite its origins as a penny paper, had, […]

Gerard Hoffnung (1925 - 1959)

German-born artist, cartoonist, humorist, caricaturist, musician, broadcaster and raconteur. A prolific illustrator most of his work was based on musical themes. His most famous recorded item is probably his “barrel” monologue, one of his many spoof letters, this one purporting to be from a builder excusing himself from work. His “Festival of Music” include fine […]

Steve Abbott (1943 - 1992)

Author. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, he studied in his city of birth and began his career as writer. He is remembered for his books “Mermaid Dreams”, “Wrecked Hearts”, “The Lives of the Poets”, “Holy Terror” and “The Lizard Club”.  Family links:  Spouse:  Barbara Louise Binder Abbott (1946 – 1973)* *Calculated relationship

Lewis Parsons Hobart (1873 - 1954)

Architect. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Hobart studied briefly at the University of California Berkeley before travelling to Paris to study at l’École des Beaux Arts until 1903. Shortly after the devastating earthquake of 1906, he moved to San Francisco where he was prominent in the rebuilding of the city. Among his many projects […]

Edward Paul Abbey (1927 - 1989)

Author. His nineteen books include “Desert Solitaire,” (regarded by many as one of the finest nature narratives in American literature), “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” “Abbey’s Road,” “Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside” and “Cactus Country.”  Family links:  Parents:  Paul Revere Abbey (1901 – 1992)  Mildred Irene Postlewaite Abbey (1905 – 1988)  Spouse:  Judith Pepper […]

William Hoare (1970 - 1792)

Artist. Painter noted for his pastels and a leading portraitist in his home city of Bath, until the arrival of Gainsborough in 1759. His work has often been described as serious and dreary. His father apprenticed him to Guiseppi Grisoni with whom he travelled to Rome in 1728. On returning to England in 1738, he […]

Odon Von Horvath (1901 - 1938)

Author. He was born in Susak, a suburb of Fiume, Austria. In 1931 he was awarded, along with Erik Reger, the Kleist Prize. When Hilter come to power, he moved to Vienna, and after the annexation, to Paris. There, Horvath who lived in fear of being struck by lightning all his life, was hit by […]

Friedrich Hitzig (1811 - 1881)

Architect of the Berlin Stock Exchange (bio by: David Conway)  Family links:  Parents:  Julius Eduard Hitzig (1780 – 1849)  Children:  Julius Eduard H. Hitzig (1838 – 1907)* *Calculated relationship

Hyakusui Hirahuku (1970 - 1970)

Japanese-style painter. (bio by: Warrick L. Barrett)

Yuzuru Hiraga (1878 - 1943)

shipbuilder and naval engineer. He designed some of Japan’s top battleships, including the Mutsu, Nagato and Yamato. (bio by: Warrick L. Barrett)

Lewis Wickes Hine (1874 - 1940)

American Photographer. Hine was trained to be an educator in Chicago and New York. A project photographing on Ellis Island with students from the Ethical Culture School in New York galvanized his recognition of the value of documentary photography in education. He became a sociological photographer, establishing a studio in upstate New York in 1912. […]

Roger Hilton (1911 - 1975)

Painter. Born Roger Hildesheim in Northwood, in Middlesex, the son of a doctor who, in 1916, anglicised the surname. Educated at Bishop’s Stortford College, the Slade School of Art, and at the Academie Raison in Paris, he had his first one-man exhibition in 1936, at the Bloomsbury Gallery in London. During the War, he served […]

Nicholas Hilliard (1970 - 1619)

Artist. Said to have been the son of Richard Hilliard of Exeter, high sheriff of the city and county. He was apprenticed as a goldsmith and jeweler, and began painting miniatures as a child, he is credited with painting the first known self-portrait at the age of 13. In 1570 he was appointed limner, or […]

Thomas Hill (1829 - 1908)

Artist. Born in England in September, 1829. In 1844 at the age of 15, his parents brought him to the United States, where they settled in Taunton, MA. Nearby, in Boston, the young immigrant earned a living as a carriage painter and shortly after, apprenticed at an interior-decorating firm. By 1851, he had married Charlotte […]

Thomas J. Higgins (1922 - 2000)

Noted Cartoonist. Served in World War II as a United States Army Staff Seagent in the Philipines and Japan. He went on to become a cartoonist who submitted more than 487 cartoons for “Ripley’s Believe it or Not.” (bio by: Graveaddiction)  Family links:  Spouse:  Teresa E. Higgins (1927 – 2016)

Eugene Higgins (1874 - 1958)

Artist. He was the artist of the poor, and the lonely, portraying them in the drama of their human existence. Also painted 3 U.S. Post Office murals for the Federal Arts Project, in Washington D.C. His works can be seen today in the Metropolitian Museum in New York, and the Congressional Library. (bio by: Laurie)

Edward Hicks (1780 - 1849)

19th century Quaker Minister and American Folk Artist considered to be America’s foremost primitive painter. Probably his best-known and most beloved works are his more than 60 “Peaceable Kingdom” paintings. Some additional works are: The Falls of Niagara, Penn’s Treaty with the Indians, Noah’s Ark, and the Grave of William Penn.   Edward was the […]

Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1814 - 1886)

Writer. He is most famous as Jules Verne’s editor.

George Hetzel (1826 - 1899)

Painter.  Born in Hangviller, a small village in the province of Alsace, France, in 1826. Hetzels father decided that America offered unparalleled opportunities for a better life, however, and when George was two years of age, his family left Hangviller for the New World. George attended Allegheny City school and was apprenticed to a local […]

Alexander Hesler (1823 - 1895)

Daguerreotypist/Photographer. Hesler’s family left Canada in 1835 and removed to Vermont where he attended school. By the time he turned twenty he moved to Racine, Wisconsin and began working in a hardware store. He realized that his main interest was in photography so he moved to Buffalo, New York where he received his training and […]

Emile Louis Herzinger (1970 - 1887)

Prize-winning 19th-century St. Louis portrait painter, landscapist and photographer.  (bio by: Connie Nisinger)