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Ideas & Media

Journalists, publishers, scholars, teachers and preachers who shaped what Americans knew and believed.

55 people

Booker T. Washington 1856–1915EducationEducator and founder of Tuskegee Institute who advocated for vocational training for African Americans.John Dewey 1859–1952EducationPhilosopher and educational reformer whose progressive ideas shaped modern American pedagogy.William James 1842–1910Scholars & Public IntellectualsFounded American psychology as a discipline and shaped pragmatist philosophy at Harvard.Noah Webster 1758–1843EducationLexicographer whose spellers and American dictionary standardized United States spelling and schoolroom instruction.Horace Mann 1796–1859EducationReformist who championed public education and is considered the father of the American public school system.Elie Wiesel 1928–2016Scholars & Public IntellectualsHolocaust survivor, author of Night, and Nobel Peace laureateMary McLeod Bethune 1875–1955EducationEducator and civil rights leader who founded Bethune-Cookman University and advised four presidents.Angela Davis b. 1944Scholars & Public IntellectualsPolitical activist and academic whose scholarship on race, class, and prisons became globally influential.Anne Sullivan 1866–1936EducationTeacher who famously educated Helen Keller, breaking through her isolation from deafness and blindness.Edward Said 1935–2003Scholars & Public IntellectualsHis 1978 book Orientalism argued that Western knowledge of the East was built inside imperial power, and it remade several humanities fields.Paul Samuelson 1915–2009Scholars & Public IntellectualsFirst American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, whose textbook defined the field for decades.Franz Boas 1858–1942Scholars & Public IntellectualsFounded American academic anthropology and argued against racial determinism from Columbia University.RHRichard Hofstadter 1916–1970Scholars & Public IntellectualsHistorian who named the paranoid style in American politics and won two Pulitzer Prizes, for The Age of Reform and Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.Frederick Jackson Turner 1861–1932Scholars & Public IntellectualsThe frontier thesis — the most influential and most attacked argument in American history.Carter G. Woodson 1875–1950Scholars & Public IntellectualsFounder of Negro History Week and the Journal of Negro HistoryCharles W. Eliot 1834–1926EducationRebuilt Harvard into the first modern American research university and gave undergraduates the elective system.Harold Bloom 1930–2019Scholars & Public IntellectualsArgued that great poems are deliberate misreadings of earlier ones, then fought the canon wars in public.Oral Roberts 1918–2009Religion & Religious MovementsMoved Pentecostal healing services from the revival tent onto national television, and built a university on the proceeds.Mary Lyon 1797–1849EducationFounder of Mount Holyoke, the first endowed college for American womenDwight L. Moody 1837–1899Religion & Religious MovementsRan revival like a business and left the Chicago school that trained American fundamentalism.Lawrence Summers b. 1954Scholars & Public IntellectualsEconomist, Treasury Secretary, and president of HarvardJames Bryant Conant 1893–1978EducationPresident of Harvard, chairman of the wartime NDRC, and champion of the SATRobert Maynard Hutchins 1899–1977EducationRan the University of Chicago at 30 and rebuilt it around the great books.Richard Posner b. 1939Scholars & Public IntellectualsJudge and legal scholar who put economics at the centre of American lawRobert Solow 1924–2023Scholars & Public IntellectualsMeasured economic growth and found that most of it comes from technological progress, not capital.Robert Parris Moses 1935–2021EducationCivil rights leader and math educator who founded the Algebra Project to empower poor students.bell hooks 1952–2021Scholars & Public IntellectualsFeminist scholar and cultural critic whose writings on race, gender, and class transformed critical theory.Charles Grandison Finney 1792–1875Religion & Religious MovementsTurned religious revival into a set of repeatable methods that every American evangelist since has used.Daniel Coit Gilman 1831–1908EducationFounding president of Johns Hopkins UniversityClark Kerr 1911–2003EducationArchitect of California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher EducationSal Khan b. 1976EducationFounder of Khan Academy, whose free online lessons have reached hundreds of millions of learners globally.Frank McCourt 1930–2009EducationPulitzer Prize-winning memoirist and New York City teacher whose Angela's Ashes became a global bestseller.Judith Butler b. 1956Scholars & Public IntellectualsPhilosopher whose work on gender performativity reshaped feminist and queer theory worldwide.Kimberlé Crenshaw b. 1959Scholars & Public IntellectualsLegal scholar who coined the term intersectionality, reshaping understandings of overlapping discrimination.Jaime Escalante 1930–2010EducationMath teacher who inspired underprivileged students in East Los Angeles to excel in advanced calculus.Isaac Mayer Wise 1819–1900Religion & Religious MovementsBuilt the three institutions that still hold American Reform Judaism together.Emma Willard 1787–1870EducationWomen's education reformer who founded the Troy Female Seminary, a model for women's higher education.Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet 1787–1851EducationFounded the first permanent American school for deaf students.Howard Gardner b. 1943EducationDevelopmental psychologist whose theory of multiple intelligences transformed educational philosophy.Lawrence Lessig b. 1961Scholars & Public IntellectualsHarvard Law professor and activist who founded Creative Commons and campaigns against political corruption.Catharine Beecher 1800–1878EducationPioneer in women's education who founded schools and advocated for female teachers across America.Wendy Kopp b. 1967EducationFounder of Teach for America, which places college graduates as teachers in underserved schools.Diane Ravitch b. 1938EducationHistorian of education and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education who shaped national education policy debates.Geoffrey Canada b. 1952EducationSocial activist who founded the Harlem Children's Zone, a model for comprehensive community-based education.Jonathan Kozol b. 1936EducationWriter and activist whose books exposed the stark inequalities in American public schooling.Michelle Rhee b. 1969EducationFormer chancellor of D.C. public schools who became a polarizing figure in education reform debates.Marva Collins 1936–2015EducationEducator who founded Westside Preparatory School and proved that disadvantaged students could achieve excellence.Glenn Loury b. 1948Scholars & Public IntellectualsBrown University economist whose work on race, inequality, and social policy bridges left and right.E. D. Hirsch Jr. b. 1928EducationLiterary scholar whose Core Knowledge curriculum emphasized cultural literacy and shared knowledge.JHJohn Holt 1923–1985EducationTeacher and author whose How Children Fail and How Children Learn inspired the homeschooling movement.Linda Darling-Hammond b. 1951EducationEducation researcher and Stanford professor who shaped teacher preparation and assessment policy.Lucy Sprague Mitchell 1878–1967EducationProgressive educator who founded Bank Street College and revolutionized early childhood education.Deborah Meier b. 1931EducationPioneer of small-school reform who founded Central Park East and won a MacArthur Genius Grant.TSTed Sizer 1932–2009EducationEducational reformer whose Coalition of Essential Schools reshaped American secondary education.Amy Wax b. 1953Scholars & Public IntellectualsUniversity of Pennsylvania law professor whose controversial writings on culture and immigration sparked national debate.