Browsing People by name starting with A (199 records)
  • fl. c. 1450 – c. 1250 BCE, Biblical Patriarch

    Biblical Figure

  • 1895 – 1974, American

    Comedian (Abbot and Costello). Their work, first in Vaudeville and later in film and on radio and television, expressed the value of silliness.

  • 1079 – 1142, French

    Philosopher and theologian. He was famous for passionate love (Heloise), but also for reintroducing logic to Europe. At different times, both his passion and his logic led to tragic complications: he was assaulted and castrated by angry relatives of Heloise and repeatedly charged with heresy by different Church authorities.

  • fl. 2000 BCE, Biblical

    (Early 2nd Century BCE) Biblical patriarch. He was the legendary forebear of both the Jews and the Arabs through different women. His life expressed a fervent devotion to his God and to monotheism.

  • fl. 1050 BCE, Biblical

    Prince of Israel. The most cherished son of King David, he betrayed his father.

  • 573 – 634, Muslim/Mecca

    Muslim caliph. He became the first caliph after the prophet's death.

  • 1893 – 1971, American

    Lawyer and U.S. secretary of state (1949-1953). He expressed values of devotion to country and extreme personal rectitude. Some thought him the embodiment of the so-called White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP).

  • 1834 – 1902, English

    Celebrated historian and Roman Catholic. He rejected the new doctrine of papal infallibility.

  • 1915 – 2004, American

    Oil well fire-fighter. He became a symbol of physical derring-do.

  • Biblical

    First man and woman in the Hebrew and Christian Bible. They combined innocence and disobedience.

  • 1722 – 1803, American

    Merchant, political leader, and rebel. He courageously organized the Boston Tea Party prior to the American Revolutionary War.

  • 1564 – 1620, English

    A seaman working for the Dutch. One of first Europeans in Japan, he was initially jailed but became a shipbuilder and samurai.

  • 1767 – 1848, American

    Ambassador, U.S. senator, sixth president of the United States, then Congressman. He was a vocal enemy of slavery.

  • 1735 – 1826, American

    U.S. president. A founding father of the United States, he exemplified honor, decency, and civility in public life.

  • 1744 – 1818, American

    Public figure. She took positions that would be described later as feminist, and left a rich literary record in her extensive letters.

  • Born 1948, Irish

    Political rebel and the leader of the Sinn Fein, the political party closely linked to the Irish Republican Army of Northern Ireland. Some see him as a murderer and terrorist, others as an Irish patriot.

  • 1838 – 1918, American

    Historian and essayist. He was one of the master expositors of the related values of sense experience (using our eyes, ears, and other sense organs to take in every bit of life) and empiricism (relying on observation, including careful self-observation rather than on logic or on authority). His life and work also expressed the value of a life of contemplation rather than action (in contrast to his immediate forebears, who served as U.S. presidents, congressmen and ambassadors); of friendship and private life; of beauty and estheticism; of knowledge and discovery; and of the appreciation of complexity and paradox.

  • 1910 – 1980, Austrian

    Autobiographer. She wrote about her love of wild Africa, animals, and especially lions.

  • 1727 – 1806, French

    Botanist. His classifications combined logic with a love of plants.

  • 1860 – 1935, American

    Jane Addams was one of the first American public intellectuals, and a hugely successful activist and reformer as well. In 1931, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She may have been the most influential woman in American history. She founded Hull House, a "settlement house" intended to serve the poor of Chicago, in 1897, and lived there the rest of her life.

    As time passed, she became a spokesperson for the poor, for women, for children, for families, for sanitation, for public health, for social and political reform, first in Chicago, then nationally, and finally throughout the world. Concern for the poor and minorities led her gradually into active politics. This included, in addition to municipal reform, winning voting rights for women and also a pacifist approach to world affairs.

    In her time, Addams was as famous as a president, and her books were read everywhere.