We Doubt Many People Could Name All 40 of these Influential Leaders in American History

2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Roosevelt brought the United States, mired in a depression when he took office, into the twentieth century, creating government programs such as Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, all of which remain critical to the national economy. Less well known is his founding of the March of Dimes, though the name was created by popular singer Eddie Cantor. He led the nation to victory during the Second World War, though he died just as Nazi Germany collapsed. His influence and programs are still felt in American life daily, despite his being reviled by many conservatives as a socialist and warmonger.

3. Alexander Hamilton

In the earliest days of the republic, Alexander Hamilton argued that the Constitution contained within it implied powers, while opponents to his view claimed that any powers not specifically spelled out in the document were relegated to the states. Hamilton’s view won out when he used the implied powers to have the federal government assume the responsibility for funding the national debt. One of his most vocal opponents later used Hamilton’s argument to justify the purchase of Louisiana. Hamilton’s view of the implied powers within the Constitution has been a subject of debate and contention throughout American history, and his influence is felt with every presidential act.

4. Henry Ford

Modern America, from its cities to its farthest reaches in remote rural lands, is built around the automobile, and it was Henry Ford who made the automobile affordable for everyone. Every other form of transportation relies in some way or another on cars and trucks, highways and byways are a major factor of the American economy. Ford was also an innovator regarding wage scales, knowing that his employees could be his customers should they be well paid. He became controversial for many things, including antisemitism and anti-union views, but his influence on American history is unquestionable.

5. James Madison

Madison was the leading figure during the Constitutional Convention, and the author of the Bill of Rights, though he borrowed liberally from fellow Virginians when he prepared them for submission. During his presidency he became the first American president to petition Congress for a declaration of war, and he exercised his powers as commander in chief in civilian garb, setting a precedent which remains the norm two centuries later. The Constitution was the work of many men, but it was Madison who drove the convention, and who later successfully argued for ratification.

6. Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln is chiefly remembered for freeing the slaves, though his Emancipation Proclamation freed only those in the states involved in the insurrection. It was the Thirteenth Amendment, which he lobbied for, which ended slavery in the United States. A less well-known achievement of his administration continues to influence American life. The Morrill Acts of 1862, which Lincoln strongly supported and signed into law, set aside federal land in the states for the creation of colleges and universities, the list of which includes Cornell, Michigan State, Penn State, Auburn, and more than one hundred other universities in the United States.

7. George C. Marshall

George C. Marshall is the unsung hero of the Second World War, serving as the Chief of Staff for the United States under Roosevelt and later Truman. But it was as Truman’s Secretary of State that he formulated and implemented the plan to rebuild Western Europe under what became known as the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan restored European markets and trading partners, strengthened the NATO alliance, and was a leading factor in the containment of Soviet aggression and expansion in the aftermath of World War II. In 1953 Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

8. Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was in France when the Constitutional Convention was held, and had little input to the document beyond correspondence with fellow founders during the ratification process. His greatest influence on American history was in his expansion of presidential powers beyond those specified in the Constitution through the purchase of Louisiana. His act more than doubled the size of the United States, ensured eventual expansion to the Pacific ocean, and obtained the port of New Orleans, creating new markets for the farmers and eventual manufacturers within the emerging American west.

9. Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was a printer, a diplomat, a philosopher, an inventor, a student of ocean currents and electricity, the founder of America’s first lending library, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a member of the Constitutional Convention, a humorist, and much more. His influence remains felt today through his breakthroughs in electricity, including his invention of the lightning rod to protect buildings and other structures. The Franklin stove and bifocal eyeglasses, both of his invention, remain common in American life. And the homely philosophy of Poor Richard’s Almanac remain a common source of humor and inspiration.

10. John Marshall

John Marshall was an important figure in the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, serving as the latter’s Secretary of State before being appointed to the Supreme Court. In 1803 Marshall led the court to its decision in the case known as Marbury vs. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review and the authority of the Supreme Court to prevent states and the federal government from implementing laws which violate the Constitution. Marshall’s decision established the Supreme Court as an independent but equal branch of the government. He remains the Chief Justice with the longest tenure on the court in American history.

11. DeWitt Clinton

Little known today outside of New York, Dewitt Clinton was a politician and what would now be called a conservationist who was one of the earliest champions of government built infrastructure to help develop industry, agriculture, and trade. He lobbied for and oversaw construction of the Erie Canal, the success of which led to a flurry of canal and road building across the growing nation, connecting the cities and ports of the East with the rivers and lakes of the west. The government activity and economic growth spurred by Clinton and those who followed changed American life and industry in ways still felt, and led New York City to become the leading trade center in America.

12. Jane Addams

Jane Addams was such a well-known social activist and reformer in her day that she became known as the Mother of Social Work. One of the co-founders of Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago, Addams promoted open debate, empirical analysis, and individual study as the residents and visitors to the house investigated the leading issues affecting society at the time, including drug use, poor housing, truancy among children, urban crime, disease, and sanitation. Her work in Chicago expanded and her followers opened similar facilities in cities all over the country, many of which remain in operation in the twenty-first century.

13. Theodore Roosevelt

The 26^th President of the United States and the 33^rd governor of New York was influential in his day for many reasons, including as a social reformer, a trust buster, a battler of graft and corruption in government, and as the man who led the charge up San Juan Hill. But his greatest influence on the life of Americans, indeed of all the world, was his untiring leadership in the support of the United States completing the Panama Canal after the French gave up. The canal transformed world trade and defense, and continues to do so more than a century after it was completed. It is so critical that during World War II it was given the United States’ highest defense priority.

14. The First Ladies of the United States

The role of the First Lady is not defined in any of the founding documents, nor in the US Code, nor practically speaking anywhere else. Yet few have had greater influence on the administration of their husbands, and thus on the nation. Some, such as Abigail Adams, left us their correspondence from which their influence can be gleaned. Others remain a mystery. In some cases the president’s daughters or the wives of friends filled the role for levees and state functions. The role of the First Lady remains little studied and understood, and their influence on American history is immeasurable.

15. Joseph Smith

The founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints was controversial in his lifetime and remains controversial to some today, but the influence of his followers on American history is obvious. Beyond the founding of the state of Utah and of course Salt Lake City, the archival records retained by the church in the area of genealogy are indispensable to researchers of America’s past. Smith was charged with treason twice in his short lifetime and died in jail while awaiting trial, which made him a martyr to some, a criminal to others, an enigma to still others, but nonetheless a major influence on the growth and development of the United States.

16. Robert E. Lee

America’s foremost soldier at the beginning of the Civil War and an engineer of great reputation and achievement, Robert E. Lee made possible the development of the city of St. Louis as a port by his work. That alone would qualify him as an influential American, but his activities and leadership during the war, and the development of the Lost Cause movement in its wake, make Lee still influential in politics in the United States, particularly in those states which made up the Confederacy. Some consider him the South’s greatest hero, others a traitor guilty of the highest treason, but the fact of the debate alone makes him an influential leader in American history.

17. James Smithson

One of the most influential leaders in American history wasn’t an American at all. He was a British scientist who left his estate to his nephew, James Hungerford, who in turn left it to the United States to establish the Smithsonian Institution, “an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men”. The original endowment was worth about $11 million today. Today’s collection held by the Smithsonian includes over 154 million items, and it operates nine research centers, 19 museums, the National Zoo, and has over 200 affiliate museums and centers in 46 states, all dedicated to Smithson’s stated purpose of increasing and spreading knowledge around the world.

18. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson was a poet, an essayist, a philosopher, a lecturer, the mentor of Henry David Thoreau, and the leader of the transcendentalist movement in the United States in the early to mid-19^th century. Emerson championed individualism throughout his life, and his works remain major influences on philosophers and transcendentalists. His work was influential on Friedrich Nietzsche and William James, the author and presenter of the first course of education in psychology within the United States. Emerson was the most influential of all American philosophers until well into the twentieth century, and remains influential to scholars today.

19. George Westinghouse

Pittsburgh entrepreneur George Westinghouse made his fortune through marketing a railroad airbrake of his own invention. The airbrake was so successful that its basic design remains in use on rail cars and other vehicles such as heavy trucks today. He then gambled his fortune in the War of the Currents, backing Nikola Tesla’s alternating current electrical distribution system over Edison’s direct current as the means for electrifying the United States. Later he developed a steam turbine engine for ships, the design of which drove much of the American fleets both merchant and naval during the Second World War. His industrial leadership was visionary, and his legacy continues to be influential in American industry.

20. Daniel Boone

Daniel Boone achieved lasting fame in his own lifetime, both on America’s frontier and in cities and towns along the coast. After he blazed a western route through the Cumberland Gap and established settlements in Kentucky more than 300,000 pioneers followed his route to the west. Though he is indelibly linked with Kentucky, he spent less time there than he did in Missouri, where he migrated with much of his family after falling into debt through failed investments and land speculation. His leadership at the opening of the westward migration following the American Revolution made him one of America’s earliest folk heroes, and as such he remains.

21. Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner was a politician who put personal morals and beliefs above party doctrine throughout his career, changing parties several times rather than support positions contrary to his conscience. During the American Civil War he worked tirelessly with President Lincoln to keep England and France from recognizing and supporting the Confederacy, and during Reconstruction his efforts in the US Senate helped keep control out of the hands of former Confederates and ensure equal rights for the newly freed slaves. A disagreement with President Grant cost him much of his power in the Senate, but his influence on the Reconstruction of the South is indisputable.

22. Samuel Adams

It was Samuel Adams, supported by a group of like-minded men who called themselves the Sons of Liberty in colonial Boston, who fomented the atmosphere of rebellion which exploded into the American Revolution in 1775. Even during the war Adams was already a center of controversy which continued through the twentieth century, with some finding him self-serving and others believing him to have been motivated purely by patriotism. The debate continues, but there is no doubt that his leadership in Boston was one of the greatest, if not the greatest incendiaries which ignited New England in open warfare against their king in the spring of 1775.

23. Dr. Benjamin Spock

Benjamin Spock was a pediatrician whose influence on mothers for several decades was such that his book The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, sold half a million copies in six months and over 50 million copies before his death in 1998. Spock’s advice to mothers could be encapsulated in his often quoted dictum, “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do”, the first line of the book. Later in his life he was widely criticized by colleagues and others including Norman Vincent Peale, but for several decades he was America’s most influential leader on the subject of child care, and for many his practices and teachings are still germane.

24. Dale Carnegie

In the early 21^st century a survey conducted by the Library of Congress ranked How to Win Friends and Influence People, published in 1936 by Dale Carnegie, as the seventh most influential book in American history. Carnegie published several others, and became the leader of what evolved into the self-help industry. His work influenced sales people, business executives, political aspirants, teachers, and many other categories and professions and continues to be cited by leading men and women in all walks of life as both inspiring and practical. More than 80 years after its publication, How to Win Friends and Influence People remains influential among leaders regardless of their fields.

25. Harry Truman

Harry Truman – to date the last American president not to have graduated from college – followed the only man elected four times to the office when FDR died in April, 1945. He presided over the end of World War II, the beginning of the Cold War, the Korean War, and the labor strife which began as industry began to retool for commercial production. Among the decisions which emanated from his office were the atomic bombing of Japan, the authorization of the Berlin Airlift, the firing of the insubordinate but popular Douglas MacArthur, and Executive Order 9981, which ordered the full integration of the United States military.

26. James Knox Polk

Polk was the most effective single term President in American history, achieving all of the goals which he emphasized during his campaign for the office, and then as promised declining to accept a second term. He achieved victory in the Mexican War, which led to the acquisition of most of the Southwest United States, resolved the Oregon boundary dispute with Great Britain, and re-established the independence of the United States Treasury. He also successfully argued for lower tariffs and signed into law the Walker Tariff law, which once enacted led to an economic upturn with increased trade with Great Britain and the rest of Europe.

27. Martin Luther King

Although highly controversial during his lifetime and continuing for decades after his death, there is little doubt regarding King’s influence on American life and history. During the civil rights campaigns and demonstrations of the 1950s and 1960s, he urged a policy of non-violence and the practice of civil disobedience rather than violent confrontation. The first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After his death it was revealed that the FBI, CIA, and NSA, and numerous local law enforcement agencies conducted extensive surveillance of his activities and communications throughout his lifetime, much of them illegally.

28. John F. Kennedy

Kennedy’s abbreviated presidency began ineptly, leading to failures over Cuba and humiliation at the hands of the Soviets, but by the autumn of 1963 his administration had achieved considerable success. His greatest influence was his challenge to the nation, first expressed in 1961, to place a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade. After his death the program which he had inspired, as well as inspired the nation to support, achieved his goal when Apollo 11 placed two men on the moon and then brought them home. By 1972 most Americans viewed a trip to the moon as routine.

29. Lady Bird Johnson

Throughout American history the influence of the First Lady on the President was limited to their personal relationship. Lady Bird Johnson was the first of the presidential wives to actively and publicly campaign for the passage of legislation with her support of the Highway Beautification Act, which led to the limiting of billboards in some areas, and the planting of flowers and installation of amenities at stops along the nation’s highways. It also led to penalties for littering on federal highways. Her influence on the bill and its passage led it to become known as Lady Bird’s Act, and its provisions remain in force in the 21^st century.

30. Sam Rayburn

Sam Rayburn served as Speaker of the House of Representatives longer than any other person in American history, serving in three separate periods of Democratic majority a total of more than 17 years. He was the impetus in the government which led to the construction of America’s fabled Route 66. His 24 term congressional career spanned the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson to John Kennedy. Throughout his career he championed America’s farmers and rural communities, supporting programs which led to flood control and electrification in rural areas, as well as the paving of rural roads.

31. George W. Norris

All but forgotten in American history books, George W. Norris was born in Ohio, practiced law in Nebraska, and was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1902. In 1912 he was elected to the Senate as a Progressive Republican. Norris’s influence on American life remains in place due to his sponsorship of the act which created the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933, and the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. The Tennessee Valley Authority was the model for the modernization of America’s agricultural regions. Norris Dam, Norris Freeway and the planned community of Norris, Tennessee were all named for the Senator.

32. Robert McCormick

Robert McCormick, who liked to style himself as Colonel McCormick or simply “the Colonel”, was an influential leader of the opposition of expanded federal power under the New Deal, a leading isolationist before the Second World War, and a leader of the America First movement of the 1930s. As the owner of the Chicago Tribune and radio station WGN (which stood for World’s Greatest Newspaper) McCormick’s influence waned after the Pearl Harbor attack and a scandal when the Tribune published a story revealing that America had cracked Japanese naval codes, but he remained a strident and influential opponent of Roosevelt and Truman until his death in 1955.

33. Dwight David Eisenhower

Known to all as Ike, Eisenhower used his considerable political and diplomatic skills to contain the often prickly personalities of the senior Allied leaders in the European Theater during the Second World War. Elected president in 1952 (the first Republican since Hoover), his presidency is remembered as one of economic prosperity. However, Cold War tensions increased throughout his presidency, and it was Eisenhower who approved the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1960, leaving its execution to his successor. His influence is still felt throughout the nation via the Interstate Highway System, authorized in 1956, with the original system completed in 1992 after thirty-five years of construction.

34. Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller was a member of the transcendentalist movement in New England, the editor of the newspaper The Dial before moving to New York to work at the New York Tribune under Horace Greeley. She was regarded as the best-read person in New England of either gender, and was the first woman granted access to the Harvard Library. She became an influential advocate of women’s access to education, women’s suffrage, equal employment opportunities, and abolition of slavery, all in the 1840s. Susan B. Anthony cited her as her inspiration. Fuller can rightfully be called the founder of the American women’s suffrage movement.

35. Booker T. Washington

For the 25 years between 1890 and 1915 Booker T. Washington was the visual and vocal leader of the African American community within the United States. Born into slavery, he rose to be an adviser of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and his successor, William Howard Taft. The author of 14 books, Washington found himself under strong criticism from the newly formed NAACP, who wanted a more virulent action over civil rights. Washington was the first president of what eventually became Tuskegee University. His autobiography Up From Slavery, was first published in 1901, and remains popular in the 21st century.

36. Edward Preble

Although John Paul Jones and John Barry are both called the Father of the American Navy, Edward Preble – all but forgotten – owns at least a share of that title. As a Commodore of the early Navy during the Barbary Wars, it was Preble who trained the young officers who became known as Preble’s boys. It was these young men who later won the stirring victories during the War of 1812 which boosted American morale and secured the Great Lakes. Every commander of an American naval victory by its frigates and on the lakes had served under Preble when learning his craft, making Preble one of the most influential leaders in the history of the United States Navy.

37. John Sherman

John Sherman was the brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman and a noted politician from Ohio who served in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and as Secretary of the Treasury. He was instrumental in the reform of coinage as well as civil service reform and upon his return to the Senate he supported the Interstate Commerce Act, which helped restrict extortionate rates charged by some railroads due to a lack of competition. His most famous achievement was the Sherman Antitrust Act, which serves to maintain competition in the marketplace for the protection of consumers, and which remains in effect in the 21^st century.

38. John Nance Garner

It is difficult to find influential Vice-Presidents of the United States, at least while they served in that office, but John Nance Garner was one, and he exerted that influence against the president whose administration he served. When FDR attempted to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court in 1937, which became the Court Packing debate, Garner opposed the attempt and spent a great deal of his political capital acquired over his long career to build opposition to the proposal in the House and Senate. In the end the measure was defeated but Garner’s actions cost him his job, and he was dropped from the ticket in the 1940 elections by an angry Roosevelt.

39. Hyman Rickover

Hyman Rickover’s long naval career was based on his engineering skills. He was for example a consultant during the renovation of the electrical drive on USS California, sunk at Pearl Harbor. But it was his long leadership of the US Navy’s nuclear power programs which led to the nuclear powered supercarriers and submarines, starting with USS Nautilus. He served 63 years in uniform, longer than any man in the history of the US Navy and for decades every officer desiring to enter the Navy’s nuclear program had to pass a personal interview with the irascible Admiral, many of which became legend.

40. Ted Turner

Beginning with a billboard company which he inherited from his father Ted Turner built a media empire, created the 24 hours a day news channel (CNN and its sister channels), the nation’s first television superstation (WTCG, later renamed WTBS), and used his steadily growing influence to promote environmental causes across the country. He also founded the Goodwill Games, developed a reputation for making outrageous statements, and met with foreign leaders and dignitaries around the world. His influence on American history is visible every time a television is tuned to one of the channels he created, or to those created to compete with him.

Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

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