[Kirkwood]

"66 Elvis Presley 67 P.T. Barnum "
"Is it a joke? The only way to define "influential" is "influential on how the society lives", preferably after the person in question has died. The Founders are at the top, as they by right ought to be, but beyond them it is an absurd joke."

I agree with Elvis because of his influence on music for the last 50 years. PT Barnum, I'm not so sure. I think Hugh Hefner had a much stronger influence on our society.

[Hawthorn]

> I agree with Elvis because of his influence on music for the last 50 years. <

Maybe he should be somewhere on the list, due perhaps more to his contribution to the breakdown of social norms than his influence on popular music.

And when it comes to music alone, Elvis should be lower on the list than Louis Armstrong, who influenced American popular music more than anybody else during the 20th century.

[GSlob]

Music is not the life of society, no more than the cartoons are. Include Scott Adams with his "Dilbert" there, then. Life of society is how people relate to one another and to their groups in socially important situations [i.e. the "gesundheit"/"bless you" does not count, and neither does Elvis' output]. Ditto for Hefner [fails the situational social importance test].

[chilepepper]

PT Barnum, I'm not so sure.

Actually, he has had a profound influence on the American body politic - that is to say, American politicians religiously follow his insight into people - just remember the dictum "there's a sucker born every minute" and you too could become speaker of the house of representatives, or maybe even first lady!

[HawaiianGecko]

67 P.T. Barnum??

I have to agree with you on Barnum.  Of course if 51% of Americans by into his position, then they are one of those suckers born every minute which would make him very astute and maybe influential... Self full-filling prophecy, heh?

[Atlas Sneezed]

I agree with Elvis because of his influence on music for the last 50 years.

---

If you define influential by the "how much different would our lives be if he had never existed"-test, then any entertainer would have a hard time making the list. You might get some authors who affected national views (Twain, Stowe, etc.) but the fact that we'd be listening to a slightly different form of pop music hardly is a blip.

My take is that the technology innovators (from Whitney to Gates) should be ranked higher.