John Bode (1816 - 1874)

John Ernest Bode (February 13, 1816 – October 6, 1874) was an Anglican priest, educator, poet, and hymnist. Born in London, John Bode was the son of William Bode. Married with three children. Educated at Eton, the Charter House, and then at Christ Church, Oxford where he received his B.A. in 1837 and a M.A. He […]

Ralph Larsen (1938 - 2016)

Ralph Larsen was born in Brooklyn, New York City in a family of five siblings in 1938. His father was a first-generation immigrant from Norway. He joined the United States Navy for a few years. He worked his way through college, taking electrical jobs, and he received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Hofstra University […]

Edwin Houston (1847 - 1914)

Edwin J. Houston (July 9, 1847 – March 1, 1914) was an American businessman, professor, consulting electrical engineer, inventor and author. Edwin Houston was born July 9, 1844 to John Mason and Mary (Lamour) Houston in Alexandria, Virginia. He graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia (a degree-granting institution rather than an ordinary high school) in […]

Elihu Thomson (1853 - 1937)

Elihu Thomson was born in Manchester (England) on March 29, 1853, but his family moved to Philadelphia in 1858. Thomson attended Central High School in Philadelphia and graduated in 1870. Thomson took a teaching position at Central, and in 1876, at the age of twenty-three, held the Chair of Chemistry. In 1880, he left Central […]

Charlie Bachman (1892 - 1985)

In 1919, at age 26, Charlie Bachman began his head coaching career at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Bachman brought a number of former players returning from World War I military service to Northwestern, but his team posted a disappointing 2–5 record. He moved on to Kansas State College in Manhattan, Kansas following this season, […]

Herbert Dow (1866 - 1930)

Herbert Henry Dow was born in 1866 in Belleville, Ontario, the eldest child of the Americans Joseph Henry Dow, an inventor and mechanical engineer, and his wife, Sarah Bunnell, who were from Derby, Connecticut. When the infant boy was six weeks old, the family returned to their hometown. They moved again in 1878, this time […]

Arnold Wilson (1884 - 1940)

Arnold Wilson was born in 1884 and educated in England at Clifton College, where his father James Maurice Wilson was a headmaster. His younger brother was the tenor Sir Steuart Wilson. Wilson was tall and strong. He began his military career as an army officer 19 August 1903, having been awarded the King’s Medal and sword […]

James Scrugham (1880 - 1945)

James Graves Scrugham (January 19, 1880 – June 23, 1945) was an American politician. He was a Representative, a Senator, and the 14th Governor of the U.S. state of Nevada. He was a member of the Democratic Party. James Scrugham was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1880. He graduated from the University of Kentucky at […]

Samuel Arentz (1879 - 1934)

Samuel Arentz was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 8, 1879. He graduated from the Chicago Manual Training School in 1897 and from the South Dakota School of Mines at Rapid City in 1904. He was a member of the South Dakota National Guard at Rapid City from 1901 to 1904. He moved to Ludering, […]

Leslie Arends (1895 - 1985)

Born in Melvin, Illinois, Leslie Arends was the youngest of 10 children born to George Teis Arends and Talea (née Weiss) Arends. His father was born in Peoria to parents who were both natives of Germany; his mother was born in Hanover, Germany. Arends served in the United States Navy during World War I and […]

Irving Lerner (1909 - 1976)

Irving Lerner (7 March 1909, New York City – 25 December 1976, Los Angeles) was an American filmmaker. Before becoming a filmmaker, Lerner was a research editor for Columbia University’s Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, getting his start in film by making documentaries for the anthropology department. In the early 1930s, he was a member of […]

Irving Pichel (1891 - 1954)

A native of Pittsburgh, Irving Pichel graduated from Harvard University in 1914 and went immediately into the theater. Pichel’s first work in musical theatre was as a technical director for the theater of the San Francisco Bohemian Club; he also helped with the annual summer pageant, held at the elite Bohemian Grove, in which up […]

Edmund Muskie (1914 - 1996)

Edmund Sixtus “Ed” Muskie (March 28, 1914 – March 26, 1996) was an American statesman, author, academic, and reformer, of Polish origin, who served as the 58th United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter. As head of the U.S. State Department, Muskie was influential in establishing diplomatic ties with foreign entities, developed numerous […]

Barry Goldwater (1909 - 1998)

Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and businessman who was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953–65, 1969–87) and the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States in the 1964 election. Despite losing the election by a landslide, Goldwater is the politician most often […]

Hubert Humphrey (1911 - 1978)

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American politician who served as the 38th Vice President of the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969. Humphrey twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. He was […]

Wendell Anderson (1933 - 2016)

Wendell Anderson was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1933. He attended Saint Paul’s Johnson High School and the University of Minnesota, where he received a B.A. in 1954. He served in the United States Army in 1956-57 and earned a law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1960. Wendell Anderson played […]

Sydney Anderson (1881 - 1948)

Sydney Anderson (September 18, 1881 – October 8, 1948) was a Representative from Minnesota; born in Zumbrota, Minnesota, Goodhue County, Minnesota; attended the common schools; was graduated from high school in 1899; attended Highland Park College, Des Moines, Iowa, and the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1903 […]

Joseph Alston (1779 - 1816)

Born in All Saints Parish near Georgetown, South Carolina, Joseph Alston attended the College of New Jersey; but he left in 1796 without graduating. He then went to study law at the office of Edward Rutledge and was admitted to the bar. Alston decided against practicing law and instead engaged in planting, becoming one of […]

William Vincent Allen (1847 - 1924)

William Vincent Allen was born in Midway, Ohio. He moved with his parents to Iowa in 1857, where he attended the common schools and Upper Iowa University at Fayette, Iowa. He served as a private with the 32nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. He then studied law at West Union, Iowa and was admitted […]

William Allen (1970 - 1879)

William Allen was born in Edenton, North Carolina and moved to Chillicothe, Ohio in 1819, after his parents’ death. He was of Quaker ancestry. Allen and his sister Mary Granberry Allen lived in Chillicothe together. His sister married Reverend Pleasant Thurman, and their son, Allen G. Thurman, followed in his uncle’s footsteps, becoming a lawyer and […]

Oscar Allen (1882 - 1936)

Oscar Allen was born in a log cabin in Winn Parish to Asa Levi Allen and the former Sophronia Perkins. He attended Winn Parish schools, the Springfield Normal School and Business College in Springfield, Missouri, and Trinity University, a private institution then in Waxahachie, Texas, south of Dallas in Ellis County, Texas (Trinity is now […]

Henry Watkins Allen (1820 - 1866)

Henry Watkins Allen enlisted as a Private in the 4th Louisiana Infantry Regiment but was quickly promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on August 15, 1861. Allen became the regiment’s Colonel on March 1, 1862. He was seriously wounded at Shiloh and Baton Rouge. Colonel Allen met Sarah Morgan on November 2, 1862, when he was still […]

Heman Allen (1779 - 1852)

Heman Allen was born in Poultney, Vermont to Heber Allen and Sarah Owen. He attended the common schools. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1795, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1801. He began the practice of law in Colchester, Vermont. He was town clerk of Colchester from 1807 until 1817. He served […]

John Pintard (1759 - 1844)

John Pintard was a descendant of Antoine Pintard, a Huguenot from La Rochelle, France. He was orphaned when his mother died when he was “a fortnight old” and his father died when he was about eighteen months old. His father, John, was a seagoing merchant, and his mother was Mary Cannon. He was raised by […]

Samuel Wilkeson (1781 - 1848)

Samuel Wilkeson (1781–1848) was mayor of Buffalo, New York, serving 1836–1837. He was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on June 1, 1781, a child of immigrants from Northern Ireland. Around 1802 he married Jane Oram and moved to Mahoning County, Ohio where he built a farm and the first grist mill in the area. He later […]

Edgar Jewett (1843 - 1924)

In 1849, his family moved to Buffalo, New York. His father, John Cotton Jewett, established a company to manufacture refrigerators and later other household conveniences including ice chests, porcelain-lined coolers, water coolers, toiletware, birdcages, spittoons, bathing apparatus, and hospital and laboratory equipment. He was married to Elizabeth Foster Danforth on October 3, 1865. They had […]

George Clinton (1807 - 1885)

George Clinton was born on April 21, 1807 in New York City to Maria Franklin (1775-1818) and DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), while the latter was serving as Mayor of New York City. His father later became a U.S. Senator and the 6th Governor of New York. He was the grandson of Major General James Clinton (1736-1812), […]

Solomon Haven (1810 - 1861)

Solomon George Haven (November 27, 1810 – December 24, 1861) was a U.S. Representative from New York and Mayor of the City of Buffalo, New York, serving in 1846–1847. He was born in Guilford, New York on November 27, 1810. He taught school and studied law and on January 10, 1835, moved to Buffalo and finished […]

Mary Talbert (1866 - 1923)

Mary Talbert was born in Oberlin, Ohio in 1866. As the only African-American woman in her graduating class from Oberlin College in 1886, Burnett received a Bachelor of Arts degree, then called an S.P. degree. She entered the field of education, first as a teacher in 1886 at Bethel University in Little Rock and then […]

Hannah Solomon (1858 - 1942)

Hannah Solomon was born on January 14, 1858, the fourth of ten siblings, to Michael and Sarah Greenebaum. Her father, Michael Greenebaum, was part of the earliest group of Jews to settle in the frontier city of Chicago. Solomon’s parents set an example of strong civic involvement; her mother organized Chicago’s first Jewish Ladies Sewing […]