Home › Timeline › Antebellum & Civil War era
Antebellum & Civil War era
Born 1820-1864 — slavery, secession, war and Reconstruction.
–1699
Colonial era
7
1700–1779
Founding era
34
1780–1819
Early Republic
64
1820–1864
Antebellum & Civil War era
110
1865–1899
Industrial & Progressive era
125
1900–1929
Early 20th century
238
1930–1949
Mid-20th century
204
1950–1969
Late 20th century
113
1970–
Contemporary era
46
110 people, oldest first
The people
Susan B. Anthony 1820–1906Reform & RightsSuffragist and civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement.William Tecumseh Sherman 1820–1891Government & PoliticsUnion general whose campaigns through Georgia and the Carolinas helped destroy the Confederacy’s capacity to wage war.Clara Barton 1821–1912Reform & RightsCivil War nurse who founded the American Red Cross and pioneered disaster relief in America.Elizabeth Blackwell 1821–1910Science & MedicineFirst woman to receive a medical degree in the United States and a pioneer of women’s medical education.Mary Baker Eddy 1821–1910Ideas & MediaFounder of Christian Science and a major female religious leader and publisher.Nathan Bedford Forrest 1821–1877Crime & NotorietyConfederate cavalry commander and early Ku Klux Klan leader whose legacy remains central to debates over racial violence and commemoration.Ulysses S. Grant 1822–1885Government & Politics18th President and Union Army general whose leadership was decisive in winning the Civil War.Rutherford B. Hayes 1822–1893Government & PoliticsNineteenth president whose disputed election settlement ended federal Reconstruction in the South.Frederick Law Olmsted 1822–1903Technology & BuildingLandscape architect who designed Central Park and established public parks as essential American civic infrastructure.Red Cloud 1822–1909Reform & RightsOglala Lakota leader whose successful resistance forced the United States to abandon forts along the Bozeman Trail.Harriet Tubman 1822–1913Reform & RightsAbolitionist who escaped slavery and led hundreds to freedom via the Underground Railroad.Chester A. Arthur 1829–1886Government & PoliticsTwenty-first president who signed the Pendleton Act establishing merit-based federal hiring.Geronimo 1829–1909Reform & RightsApache leader whose prolonged resistance became a powerful symbol of Indigenous opposition to U.S. expansion.Levi Strauss 1829–1902Business & LaborImmigrant entrepreneur whose company helped turn blue jeans into an enduring American product and symbol.Emily Dickinson 1830–1886Arts & LettersReclusive poet whose innovative use of form and slant rhyme made her one of America's greatest literary voices.Rebecca Lee Crumpler 1831–1895Science & MedicineFirst Black woman to earn a medical degree in the United States and an early advocate for care in underserved communities.James A. Garfield 1831–1881Government & PoliticsTwentieth president assassinated months into office prompting federal civil service reform.Sitting Bull 1831–1890Reform & RightsHunkpapa Lakota leader and spiritual figure who resisted U.S. expansion and defended tribal sovereignty.Louisa May Alcott 1832–1888Arts & LettersAuthor of Little Women and a founding figure of American domestic fiction.William Le Baron Jenney 1832–1907Technology & BuildingArchitect and engineer who designed the first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building in Chicago.Benjamin Harrison 1833–1901Government & PoliticsTwenty-third president who signed the Sherman Antitrust Act and expanded the modern navy.John Wesley Powell 1834–1902Frontier & SportGeologist and explorer who led the first documented passage through the Grand Canyon.James Whistler 1834–1903Arts & LettersPainter and etcher best known for Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, commonly called Whistler's Mother.Andrew Carnegie 1835–1919Business & LaborSteel magnate who built one of the largest steel empires in history and later became a major philanthropist.Mark Twain 1835–1910Arts & LettersAuthor of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, often called the father of American literature.Jay Gould 1836–1892Business & LaborControlled major railroad and telegraph systems through aggressive stock manipulation.Winslow Homer 1836–1910Arts & LettersPainter and illustrator whose seascapes and scenes of American life captured the nation's spirit.Grover Cleveland 1837–1908Government & PoliticsOnly president elected to nonconsecutive terms who championed limited government and the gold standard.J. P. Morgan 1837–1913Business & LaborBanking titan who stabilized the economy during the Panic of 1907 and shaped modern finance.Mother Jones 1837–1930Business & LaborOrganizer whose militant campaigns for miners and against child labor made her an icon of American labor.Washington Roebling 1837–1926Technology & BuildingEngineer who oversaw the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge after his father's death.John Wilkes Booth 1838–1865Crime & NotorietyActor who assassinated President Lincoln in 1865 — altering the course of Reconstruction.James J. Hill 1838–1916Business & LaborBuilt the Great Northern Railway without federal land grants and shaped northern plains settlement.John Muir 1838–1914Reform & RightsNaturalist and organizer whose advocacy helped create national parks and the modern wilderness movement.Henry George 1839–1897Ideas & MediaArgued for the single tax on land values in Progress and Poverty.Josiah Willard Gibbs 1839–1903Science & MedicineFounded chemical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics through his work on heterogeneous equilibrium at Yale.John D. Rockefeller 1839–1937Business & LaborEstablished the Rockefeller Foundation and funded medical research, education, and public health initiatives.Gustavus Franklin Swift 1839–1903Technology & BuildingMeatpacking pioneer who developed the refrigerated rail car, transforming the food industry.Chief Joseph 1840–1904Reform & RightsNez Perce leader remembered for resistance to forced removal and eloquent advocacy for his people.Crazy Horse 1840–1877Reform & RightsOglala Lakota war leader who played a major role in resistance to U.S. military expansion on the northern plains.Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 1841–1935Government & PoliticsJustice whose pragmatic jurisprudence and free-speech opinions deeply influenced American law.William James 1842–1910Ideas & MediaFounded American psychology as a discipline and shaped pragmatist philosophy at Harvard.Henry James 1843–1916Arts & LettersNovelist whose intricate explorations of consciousness and society bridged American and European literature.William McKinley 1843–1901Government & PoliticsTwenty-fifth president who led the Spanish-American War and overseas expansion before being assassinated.Mary Cassatt 1844–1926Arts & LettersImpressionist painter and printmaker who depicted the intimate bonds between mothers and children.Thomas Eakins 1844–1916Arts & LettersRealist painter celebrated for his anatomically precise portraits and scenes of athletes and surgeons.Harvey Washington Wiley 1844–1930Reform & RightsChemist whose adulteration studies produced the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the agency that became the FDA.Sarah Winnemucca 1844–1891Reform & RightsNorthern Paiute author and lecturer who petitioned Washington over reservation abuses.Quanah Parker 1845–1911Reform & RightsLast Comanche war leader who became a reservation-era negotiator and figure in the Native American Church.Daniel Burnham 1846–1912Technology & BuildingArchitect and planner whose City Beautiful vision shaped downtowns, civic centers, and urban planning.George Westinghouse 1846–1914Technology & BuildingEngineer and industrialist who championed alternating current and founded the Westinghouse Electric Company.Alexander Graham Bell 1847–1922Technology & BuildingInventor of the telephone and founder of AT&T, transforming global communication.Thomas Edison 1847–1931Technology & BuildingInventor and scientist whose research laboratory model and electrical innovations transformed modern life.Joseph Pulitzer 1847–1911Ideas & MediaPublisher who transformed mass-circulation journalism and endowed the Pulitzer Prizes.Lewis Latimer 1848–1928Technology & BuildingAfrican American inventor who improved the light bulb and drafted patents for Alexander Graham Bell.Lewis Howard Latimer 1848–1928Technology & BuildingPatented a durable carbon filament process and drafted key electrical patents for Bell and Edison.Augustus Saint-Gaudens 1848–1907Arts & LettersSculptor whose public monuments, including the Shaw Memorial, are among America's finest.Luther Burbank 1849–1926Reform & RightsPlant breeder whose hundreds of new varieties changed American horticulture, agriculture, and popular attitudes toward scientific breeding.Henry Clay Frick 1849–1919Business & LaborDominated coke supply for steelmaking and ran Carnegie Steel during the Homestead strike.William Osler 1849–1919Science & MedicineBuilt bedside clinical teaching into American medical education as a founding Johns Hopkins professor.Terence V. Powderly 1849–1924Business & LaborLed the Knights of Labor as it became the first mass national labor organization in the United States.Jacob Riis 1849–1914Ideas & MediaPhotographer and reporter whose documentation of New York tenements drove housing reform campaigns.Samuel Gompers 1850–1924Business & LaborFounding leader of the American Federation of Labor who established durable craft-union organization.Lucy Parsons 1851–1942Business & LaborRadical labor organizer and writer who advocated for workers, free speech, and racial and gender equality over seven decades.Walter Reed 1851–1902Science & MedicineArmy physician whose commission confirmed mosquito transmission of yellow fever and transformed disease control.William Stewart Halsted 1852–1922Science & MedicineEstablished aseptic surgical technique and the American surgical residency training system.George Eastman 1854–1932Business & LaborFounder of Kodak who made photography affordable and created a model of mass consumer technology.Eugene V. Debs 1855–1926Business & LaborSocialist Party leader who ran for president five times from prison and championed labor rights.Robert La Follette 1855–1925Government & PoliticsWisconsin governor and senator who led the Progressive movement against railroad and corporate influence.Robert M. La Follette 1855–1925Government & PoliticsProgressive governor and senator who championed direct democracy, corporate regulation, and political reform.Percival Lowell 1855–1916Science & MedicineFounded Lowell Observatory and initiated the search that led to Pluto's discovery.Andrew W. Mellon 1855–1937Business & LaborBanker and art collector whose foundation built the National Gallery of Art.Louis Brandeis 1856–1941Government & PoliticsJustice and reform lawyer who advanced privacy, free speech, and progressive regulation.Robert Peary 1856–1920Frontier & SportNaval officer who led the disputed 1909 expedition that claimed to have reached the North Pole.Louis Sullivan 1856–1924Technology & BuildingArchitect whose skyscraper designs and “form follows function” principle helped define modern architecture.Frederick Winslow Taylor 1856–1915Technology & BuildingMechanical engineer who pioneered scientific management, reshaping industrial efficiency worldwide.Nikola Tesla 1856–1943Technology & BuildingSerbian-American inventor who developed alternating current electrical systems and numerous electrical innovations.Booker T. Washington 1856–1915Ideas & MediaEducator and founder of Tuskegee Institute who advocated for vocational training for African Americans.Woodrow Wilson 1856–1924Government & Politics28th President who led the nation through World War I and championed the League of Nations.Granville Woods 1856–1910Technology & BuildingPatented induction telegraph and electrical systems that improved railway communication and safety.William Howard Taft 1857–1930Government & PoliticsOnly person to serve as both president and Chief Justice of the United States.Ida Tarbell 1857–1944Ideas & MediaInvestigative journalist whose serial history of Standard Oil contributed to the company's antitrust breakup.Thorstein Veblen 1857–1929Ideas & MediaFounded institutional economics and coined conspicuous consumption in The Theory of the Leisure Class.Franz Boas 1858–1942Ideas & MediaFounded American academic anthropology and argued against racial determinism from Columbia University.Adolph Ochs 1858–1935Ideas & MediaPublisher who rebuilt The New York Times around factual reporting and set its long-running editorial standard.Theodore Roosevelt 1858–1919Government & Politics26th President known for progressive reforms, conservation efforts, and assertive foreign policy.Carrie Chapman Catt 1859–1947Reform & RightsSuffrage leader whose national organizing was instrumental in securing ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.John Dewey 1859–1952Ideas & MediaPhilosopher and educational reformer whose progressive ideas shaped modern American pedagogy.Jane Addams 1860–1935Reform & RightsSocial worker and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who founded Hull House and the settlement house movement.William Jennings Bryan 1860–1925Government & PoliticsThree-time Democratic nominee and orator who made monetary reform, popular democracy, and moral politics central national issues.Herman Hollerith 1860–1929Technology & BuildingInvented punched-card tabulating machines used in the 1890 census and founded a corporate predecessor of IBM.John J. Pershing 1860–1948Government & PoliticsCommander of the American Expeditionary Forces who built and led the U.S. Army in World War I.Elmer Sperry 1860–1930Technology & BuildingInventor and engineer who developed gyroscopic stabilizers for ships and aircraft.Solomon R. Guggenheim 1861–1949Business & LaborIndustrialist whose foundation established the Guggenheim Museum of modern art.Ralph Modjeski 1861–1940Technology & BuildingPolish-American bridge engineer who designed major spans including the Bay Bridge and Benjamin Franklin Bridge.Frederic Remington 1861–1909Arts & LettersPainter and sculptor whose depictions of the American West defined the cowboy mythos.Charles Evans Hughes 1862–1948Government & PoliticsChief justice, governor, and secretary of state who guided the Court through major New Deal constitutional conflicts.Julius Rosenwald 1862–1932Business & LaborSears executive who funded thousands of schools for African American children in the segregated South.Ida B. Wells 1862–1931Reform & RightsJournalist and anti-lynching crusader whose investigative reporting exposed racial terror in the South.Edith Wharton 1862–1937Arts & LettersFirst woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, known for The Age of Innocence and Gilded Age novels.Annie Jump Cannon 1863–1941Science & MedicineDeveloped the stellar spectral classification system still used to categorize stars.Henry Ford 1863–1947Business & LaborIndustrialist who revolutionized manufacturing with the assembly line and made automobiles affordable.William Randolph Hearst 1863–1951Ideas & MediaPublisher whose sensational newspapers and national media empire wielded immense cultural and political power.Nellie Bly 1864–1922Ideas & MediaReporter whose undercover asylum investigation and record circumnavigation established investigative reporting.George Washington Carver 1864–1943Reform & RightsAgricultural scientist whose research on crop rotation and alternative crops transformed Southern farming.Alfred Stieglitz 1864–1946Arts & LettersPhotographer and gallerist who established photography as fine art and promoted American modernists.Benjamin N. Cardozo 1870–1938Government & PoliticsJudge and Supreme Court justice whose opinions became foundational to American tort, contract, and common-law reasoning.William J. Seymour 1870–1922Ideas & MediaPreacher who led the Azusa Street Revival, a foundational event in the global growth of Pentecostal Christianity.Florence R. Sabin 1871–1953Science & MedicinePioneering medical researcher and public-health reformer who advanced knowledge of the lymphatic and immune systems.Learned Hand 1872–1961Government & PoliticsFederal judge whose widely cited opinions on free speech, negligence, and judicial restraint profoundly influenced American law.