노예제도를 없앤 미국 16대 대통령 에이브러햄 링컨(사진)이 `미국에 가장 큰 영향을 준 역사적 인물'로 꼽혔다.
워싱턴에서 발행되는 월간지 `애틀랜틱 먼슬리'는 유명 역사학자 10명에게 설문조사를 실시, `미국 역사에 영향을 준 100명'을 선정해 다음달호에 게재키로 하고 21일 인터넷판에서 결과를 공개했다. 퓰리처상 수상작가 겸 역사학자인 도리스 굿윈 등 이 조사에 참가한 역사학자들은 남북전쟁에서 북부연합을 승리로 이끌어 오늘날 미국의 틀을 굳히고 노예를 해방시킨 `제2 건국의 주역' 링컨을 `미국을 만든 사람들' 중 가장 맨 위로 올렸다.
조지 워싱턴, 토머스 제퍼슨, 프랭클린 루즈벨트 등 역대 대통령들이 2∼4위로 링컨의 뒤를 이었다. 5위는 워싱턴의 부하로 훗날 뉴욕증권거래소를 세운 알렉산더 해밀턴, 6위는 발명가 겸 작가 벤저민 프랭클린이 차지했다. 흑인 인권운동가 마틴 루터 킹 주니어는 8위, 발명왕 토머스 에디슨은 9위였다. 현존 인물로는 마이크로소프트(MS) 설립자 빌 게이츠가 54위로 가장 높은 순위에 자리했다.
The most influential figures in American history.
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1 에이브러햄 링컨
He saved the Union, freed the slaves, and presided over America’s second founding.
2 조지 워싱턴
He made the United States possible—not only by defeating a king, but by declining to become one himself.
3 토머스 제퍼슨
The author of the five most important words in American history: “All men are created equal.”
4 프랭클린 D 루즈벨트
He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and then he proved it.
5 알렉산더 해밀튼
Soldier, banker, and political scientist, he set in motion an agrarian nation’s transformation into an industrial power.
6 벤저민 프랭클린
The Founder-of-all-trades— scientist, printer, writer, diplomat, inventor, and more; like his country, he contained multitudes.
7 존 마셜
The defining chief justice, he established the Supreme Court as the equal of the other two federal branches.
8 
마틴루터킹 Jr.
His dream of racial equality is still elusive, but no one did more to make it real.
9 토머스 에디슨
It wasn’t just the lightbulb; the Wizard of Menlo Park was the most prolific inventor in American history.
10 우드로 윌슨
He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy.
11 존 D. 록펠러
The man behind Standard Oil set the mold for our tycoons—first by making money, then by giving it away.
12 율리시스 S. 그란트
He was a poor president, but he was the general Lincoln needed; he also wrote the greatest political memoir in American history.
13 제임스 매디슨
He fathered the Constitution and wrote the Bill of Rights.
14 헨리 포드
He gave us the assembly line and the Model T, and sparked America’s love affair with the automobile.
15 테어도어 루즈벨트
Whether busting trusts or building canals, he embodied the “strenuous life” and blazed a trail for twentieth-century America.
16 마크 트웨인
Author of our national epic, he was the most unsentimental observer of our national life.
17 로널드 레이건
The amiable architect of both the conservative realignment and the Cold War’s end.
18 앤드루 잭슨
The first great populist: he found America a republic and left it a democracy.
19 토머스 페인
The voice of the American Revolution, and our first great radical.
20 앤드루 카네기
The original self-made man forged America’s industrial might and became one of the nation’s greatest philanthropists.
21 해리 트루먼
An accidental president, this machine politician ushered in the Atomic Age and then the Cold War.
22 월트 휘트먼
He sang of America and shaped the country’s conception of itself.
23 라이트 형제
They got us all off the ground.
24 알렉산더 그래함 벨
By inventing the telephone, he opened the age of telecommunications and shrank the world.
25 존 애덤스
His leadership made the American Revolution possible; his devotion to republicanism made it succeed.
26 월트 디즈니
The quintessential entertainer-entrepreneur, he wielded unmatched influence over our childhood.
27 엘리 휘트니
His gin made cotton king and sustained an empire for slavery.
28 드와이트 아이젠하워
He won a war and two elections, and made everybody like Ike.
29 얼 워런
His Supreme Court transformed American society and bequeathed to us the culture wars.
30 엘리자베스 캐디 스탠튼
One of the first great American feminists, she fought for social reform and women’s right to vote.
31 헨리 클레이
One of America’s greatest legislators and orators, he forged compromises that held off civil war for decades.
32 알베르트 아인슈타인
His greatest scientific work was done in Europe, but his humanity earned him undying fame in America.
33 랄프 왈도 에머슨
The bard of individualism, he relied on himself—and told us all to do the same.
34 조나스 솔크
His vaccine for polio eradicated one of the world’s worst plagues.
35 재키 로빈슨
He broke baseball’s color barrier and embodied integration’s promise.
36 윌리엄 제닝스 브라이언
“The Great Commoner” lost three presidential elections, but his populism transformed the country.
37 J. P. 모건
The great financier and banker was the prototype for all the Wall Street barons who followed.
38 수전 B. 앤서니
She was the country’s most eloquent voice for women’s equality under the law.
39 레이첼 카슨
The author of Silent Spring was godmother to the environmental movement.
40 존 듀이
He sought to make the public school a training ground for democratic life.
41 해리엇 비처 스토
Her Uncle Tom’s Cabin inspired a generation of abolitionists and set the stage for civil war.
42 엘레노어 루즈벨트
She used the first lady’s office and the mass media to become “first lady of the world.”
43 W. E. B. 뒤부아
One of America’s great intellectuals, he made the “problem of the color line” his life’s work.
44 린든 베인스 존슨
His brilliance gave us civil-rights laws; his stubbornness gave us Vietnam.
45 새뮤얼 F. B. 모스
Before the Internet, there was Morse code.
46 윌리엄 로이드 개리슨
Through his newspaper, The Liberator, he became the voice of abolition.
47 프레데릭 더글러스
After escaping from slavery, he pricked the nation’s conscience with an eloquent accounting of its crimes.
48 로버트 오펜하이머
The father of the atomic bomb and the regretful midwife of the nuclear era.
49 프레데릭 로 올름스테드
The genius behind New York’s Central Park, he inspired the greening of America’s cities.
50 제임스 K. 포크
This one-term president’s Mexican War landgrab gave us California, Texas, and the Southwest.
51 마거릿 생어
The ardent champion of birth control—and of the sexual freedom that came with it.
52 조지프 스미스
The founder of Mormonism, America’s most famous homegrown faith.
53 올리버 웬델 홈스 Jr.
Known as “The Great Dissenter,” he wrote Supreme Court opinions that continue to shape American jurisprudence.
54 빌 게이츠
The Rockefeller of the Information Age, in business and philanthropy alike.
55 존 퀸시 애덤스
The Monroe Doctrine’s real author, he set nineteenth-century America’s diplomatic course.
56 호레이스 만
His tireless advocacy of universal public schooling earned him the title “The Father of American Education.”
57 로버트 E. 리
He was a good general but a better symbol, embodying conciliation in defeat.
58 존 C. 칼훈
The voice of the antebellum South, he was slavery’s most ardent defender.
59 루이스 설리번
The father of architectural modernism, he shaped the defining American building: the skyscraper.
60 윌리엄 포크너
The most gifted chronicler of America’s tormented and fascinating South.
61 새뮤얼 곰퍼스
The country’s greatest labor organizer, he made the golden age of unions possible.
62 윌리엄 제임스
The mind behind Pragmatism, America’s most important philosophical school.
63 조지 마셜
As a general, he organized the American effort in World War II; as a statesman, he rebuilt Western Europe.
64 제인 애덤스
The founder of Hull House, she became the secular saint of social work.
65 헨리 데이빗 소로
The original American dropout, he has inspired seekers of authenticity for 150 years.
66 엘비스 프레슬리
The king of rock and roll. Enough said.
67 P. T. 바눔
The circus impresario’s taste for spectacle paved the way for blockbuster movies and reality TV.
68 제임스 D. 왓슨
He codiscovered DNA’s double helix, revealing the code of life to scientists and entrepreneurs alike.
69 제임스 고든 베넷
As the founding publisher of The New York Herald, he invented the modern American newspaper.
70 루이스 & 클라크
They went west to explore, and millions followed in their wake.
71 노아 웹스터
He didn’t create American English, but his dictionary defined it.
72 샘 월튼
He promised us “Every Day Low Prices,” and we took him up on the offer.
73 사이러스 매커믹
His mechanical reaper spelled the end of traditional farming, and the beginning of industrial agriculture.
74 브리검 영
What Joseph Smith founded, Young preserved, leading the Mormons to their promised land.
75 조지 허먼 “베이브” 루스
He saved the national pastime in the wake of the Black Sox scandal—and permanently linked sports and celebrity.
76 프랭크 로이드 라이트
America’s most significant architect, he was the archetype of the visionary artist at odds with capitalism.
77 베티 프리단
She spoke to the discontent of housewives everywhere—and inspired a revolution in gender roles.
78 존 브라운
Whether a hero, a fanatic, or both, he provided the spark for the Civil War.
79 루이 암스트롱
His talent and charisma took jazz from the cathouses of Storyville to Broadway, television, and beyond.
80 윌리엄 랜돌프 허스트
The press baron who perfected yellow journalism and helped start the Spanish-American War.
81 마거릿 미드
With Coming of Age in Samoa, she made anthropology relevant—and controversial.
82 조지 갤럽
He asked Americans what they thought, and the politicians listened.
83 제임스 페니모어 쿠퍼
The novels are unreadable, but he was the first great mythologizer of the frontier.
84 더굿 마셜
As a lawyer and a Supreme Court justice, he was the legal architect of the civil-rights revolution.
85 어니스트 헤밍웨이
His spare style defined American modernism, and his life made machismo a cliché.
86 메리 베이커 에디
She got off her sickbed and founded Christian Science, which promised spiritual healing to all.
87 벤저민 스폭
With a single book—and a singular approach—he changed American parenting.
88 엔리코 페르미
A giant of physics, he helped develop quantum theory and was instrumental in building the atomic bomb.
89 월터 리프먼
The last man who could swing an election with a newspaper column.
90 조나선 에드워즈
Forget the fire and brimstone: his subtle eloquence made him the country’s most influential theologian.
91 라이먼 비처
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s clergyman father earned fame as an abolitionist and an evangelist.
92 존 스타인벡
As the creator of Tom Joad, he chronicled Depression-era misery.
93 냇 터너
He was the most successful rebel slave; his specter would stalk the white South for a century.
94 조지 이스트먼
The founder of Kodak democratized photography with his handy rolls of film.
95 샘 골드윈
A producer for forty years, he was the first great Hollywood mogul.
96 랄프 네이더
He made the cars we drive safer; thirty years later, he made George W. Bush the president.
97 스티븐 포스터
America’s first great songwriter, he brought us “O! Susanna” and “My Old Kentucky Home.”
98 부커 T. 워싱턴
As an educator and a champion of self-help, he tried to lead black America up from slavery.
99 리처드 닉슨
He broke the New Deal majority, and then broke his presidency on a scandal that still haunts America.
100 허먼 멜빌
Moby Dick was a flop at the time, but Melville is remembered as the American Shakespeare.