Posted on 06/30/2009 7:32:01 AM PDT by Publius772000
But nice rack
x, this is your kind of list.
As for industrialists, I’d add to consideration J.P. Morgan, or Andrew Carnegie. I’m also thinking Billy Durant over Henry Ford. And what about Milton Friedman? Or Isaac Singer any of the various inventors and disseminators of the sewing machine. Or Hiran Moore and/or Cyrus McCormick.
All these folks made life better for all Americans. And they made their fortunes on the great American empowerment of the individual. Truly, the great American hero is the everyman. As such, I nominate Alexis de Toqcueville for being the best to articultate it.
1) Washington
2) Lincoln
3) Carnegie
4) Rockefeller
5) Madison
A friendly American bump to your outstanding list.
Some people not mentioned so far in my short skim of the replies. The American Farmer, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elvis Presley, Willis Carrier, Walt Disney.
> An argument can be made for Ford, Tesla, the Wright Brothers, Edison, etc...for their inventions.
Except the Wright Brothers didn’t “invent” the motorized aeroplane. That distinction belongs to Richard Pearse, a Canterbury farmer from New Zealand.
> Still, the Wright Brothers stand above the rest, so I say.
Except they didn’t invent the aeroplane. Richard Pearse did, half the world away and a couple years prior, in New Zealand.
Where the Wright Brothers influenced by Pearse?
> Where the Wright Brothers influenced by Pearse?
I don’t know.
There are certain similarities between the Pearse craft and the Wright craft, and some important differences too.
What remains of the Pearse craft is at the Museum of Transportation, Science and Technology (MOTAT) in Auckland’s Western Springs. There’s also a full-size replica built from his drawings.
There are two MOTAT sites: MOTAT 2 has most of New Zealand’s historic aeroplanes in a couple large hangars — including a Lancaster Bomber, one of a very few left in the world. Pearse’s craft is in MOTAT 1, the main site, just down the road. Next door to the Auckland Zoo.
(MOTAT is a really interesting museum: it’s where New Zealand displays all of its really cool stuff that doesn’t get into the Auckland War Memorial Museum or into the national “Te Papa Museum of New Zealand” in Wellington. Imagine the Smithsonian Museums designed by ten year-old boys: that’s MOTAT. Lots of trains, lots of planes, lots of war stuff. Not much “interpretation” required.)
I think Gen Eisenhower’s contributions to American security should earn him a place on the list even if he did go on to get himself elected President. Henry Ford should be on some list someplace too.
Well, the Wright’s were real students of the art at the time, and they and their sister and some companions did what appears to have been some serious paradigm shifting.
When the time is ripe for an invention you’ll find a number of simultaneous inventors. And always some precursors who may even have succeeded but the time and place wasn’t capable of accepting the invention.
The Wright’s were real innovators, not just about aeroplanes, but about the methodology of rapid invention.
> Well, the Wright’s were real students of the art at the time, and they and their sister and some companions did what appears to have been some serious paradigm shifting.
They were very clever folks, for certain. And they were in the right place to get their invention “off the ground” as it were: South Canterbury in NZ’s South Island is about as deserted as it can get — aside from quite a few million sheep. One brilliant guy like Pearse, working alone, can get all kinds of wild things happening. Trouble is, finding anybody to tell about it!
What I found interesting was the differences between the Wright machine and the Pearse machine. Pearse used a propellor that pulled — the Wrights used a propellor that pushed. Pearse used a monoplane versus the Wright’s biplane. And if you look at Pearse’s machine today (or rather the replica as his original is in several bits at MOTAT) it resembles a modern ultra-lite more than anything...
Dunno if you’re ever likely to be in New Zealand: if you ever are I’d be happy to show you MOTAT and the Pearse plane. MOTAT is like a ten-year-old boy’s idea of what a museum should look like: lots of cool stuff in there “because it’s cool” and because it needs to be saved, with no other good reason necessary... and it’s right beside the Zoo, which makes it a great reason to go.
Usually, though, inventors are one-shot guys. Edison makes the list because he come up with so many things. Bell and Morse, Singer and McCormick just didn't get that second brainstorm.
Henry Ford was a controversial figure because of some of his opinions, but I'd put him on the list. At Ford he was the guy who had responsibility for everything. With GM, you've got Durant and Sloan as important figures, though you'd know better than me who was the true mastermind. Right now anyway, GM stock is probably low among historians as well as on the stock exchange.
The country alternates between Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian periods. There was a long period of Jefferson worship that began with Woodrow Wilson, took off with the Depression and FDR and was sustained by Kennedy and Reagan. It started when Southern Democrats came to power in Washington, and endured because Republicans valued Jefferson's limited government stand.
Since the 1990s, Jefferson's reputation declined, due first to the Sally Hemmings story and the things Jefferson wrote about race and about the French Revolution. Then 9/11 and a need for stronger defense measures. Also, the rise of a Democratic Party that doesn't play the Southern card. And now a new turn toward big government that doesn't need the fig leaf of Jeffersonian rhetoric.
I'm glad that Hamilton's finally getting his due after more than a century. But I suspect that, at least among conservatives things are going to change again. When one party embraces bigger government, the other usually falls back on Jefferson. For me personally, reading Hamiltonian conservative Richard Brookhiser's recent books was a major disappointment. Whether it's What Would the Founders Do? or Right Time, Right Place the guy literally doesn't have much to say about politics or government. Maybe I shouldn't hold it against Hamilton, but there it is.
I also took a look at a new book on Marshall, The Activist. Not a good read, but an interesting thesis: Marshall basically created judicial review as a part of the Constitution. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing in itself -- somebody had to decide the hard questions -- but there weren't sufficient checks on the Supreme Court to match those on other branches, so the courts became potentially a more dangerous branch of government than the founders intended.
Have a happy Fourth!
I appreciate your responses very much, and thanks for the offer. It seems G-d requires I get off my virtual ass and start earning the kind of dough needed to self-fund such a voyage, which I would like, but earning the dough? — that’s hard work.
The Erie Canal — good point. Then I’ll add Robert Moses and William Levitt to the list too. Also Mr. Central Park: Fredrick Law Olmsted. I should know the inventor of the Shopping Center — he’s a Chicago area developer from the 1920’s, but I forgot his name. Include him too.
Unless you were a farmer in a southern state, or advocated resistance to British heavy-handed tactics against your merchant ships, or you were against a federal bank.
Is it any wonder Thomas Jefferson mistrusted and despised this guy?
Is it any wonder Thomas Jefferson mistrusted and despised this guy?
Jefferson? Great guy, except if you were Black, or a slave, or a Revolutionary soldier who wondered where his governor had run off to, or a Frenchman who got his head cut off by the revolutionaries he loved, or a merchant or sailor who wanted to make a living during the embargo, or if you were in favor of a national bank.
Is it any wonder that Hamilton and Adams mistrusted and dispised this guy?
Not that Jefferson was as bad as his opponents said, but it cuts both ways.
The point of the article was to compare reasonable lists to the list 22,000 public high school students came up with.
That list:
1. Martin Luther King, Jr.
2. Rosa Parks
3. Harriet Tubman
4. Susan B. Anthony
5. Benjamin Franklin
6. Amelia Earhart
7. Oprah Winfrey
8. Marilyn Monroe
9. Thomas Edison
10. Albert Einstein
The article link is wrong. It should be http://theconstitutionalalamo.com/2009/06/29/the-five-greatest-americans-you-might-be-surprised/.
His slaves actually liked him very much. And I'll remind you that Washington, Madison, and many others also had slaves.
or a Revolutionary soldier who wondered where his governor had run off to
Nonsensical.
or a Frenchman who got his head cut off by the revolutionaries he loved,
How could he have prevented this? Jefferson was an American citizen not one of France. So he should have held up his hand and shouted, "Stop! I demand this révolution cease immediately!"
or a merchant or sailor who wanted to make a living during the embargo,
"embargo", oh, you mean resistance to Great Britain who sunk our ships and impressed our sailors.
or if you were in favor of a national bank.
Events have proved Thomas J, not Hamilton, correct on this.
Is it any wonder that Hamilton and Adams mistrusted and dispised [sic] this guy?
No wonder about Hamilton at all. Jefferson was a pure American. Hamilton always had a soft spot for the Crown. As to Adams, he and Jefferson had a contentious relationship at times but both reconciled and admittedly liked and respected each other very much.
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