Merchant, political leader, and rebel. He courageously organized the Boston Tea Party prior to the American Revolutionary War.
Ambassador, U.S. senator, sixth president of the United States, then Congressman. He was a vocal enemy of slavery.
U.S. president. A founding father of the United States, he exemplified honor, decency, and civility in public life.
Public figure. She took positions that would be described later as feminist, and left a rich literary record in her extensive letters.
Botanist. His classifications combined logic with a love of plants.
Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, husband of Britain's Queen Victoria. His relationship with his wife set a new standard of marital fidelity in British aristocratic circles.
Poet. She wrote much loved hymns such as "Once in Royal David's City" and "All Things Bright and Beautiful," both included in her Hymns for Little Children.
Czar. He freed the serfs in 1861 but was later assassinated.
Czar from 1801. He began his reign with ideas of liberalizing the Russian political regime. However, he became an example of reaction and despotism mixed with religious mysticism.
Novelist and Unitarian clergyman. His books about young men who prosper became a by-word for hope, optimism, hard work, persistence, and the importance of good moral character in earning and winning success.
Duchess of Saxe-Weimar. During her regency, she made the court at Weimar a center of European culture.
Writer, poet, author of world-famous fairy tales, and moralist. His stories, like Aesop's, teach important social lessons. "The Ugly Duckling," for example, illustrates the virtue of tolerance and of not rejecting people based on physical or other superficial differences.
Author and archivist. He was a creator and conserver of folk tales, a deep romantic, and a moralist.
Soldier. The most famous traitor in American history, he began as a valued staff officer on the American side of the Revolutionary War, eventually plotted to hand his command, West Point, over to the British, and ended the war as a British officer. In time his name became a by-word for treachery. ("So and so is a Benedict Arnold.")
Poet, critic, and inspector of schools. He deeply believed in the value of what he called "culture," defined as the transforming experience of the best human works and thoughts from the past. Through an education that immerses us in the accumulated wisdom of the humanities and especially of literature, the human race pursues "total perfection" and "the passion for sweetness and light." Arnold also introduced the term "philistine" to describe the middle class, a term that later came to mean someone who is unfamiliar with or rejects "culture."
Philanthropist. He established Liberia as a refuge for freed U.S. slaves who wished to return to Africa.
Ornithologist, painter, and promoter of Birds of America. Audubon's career combined a love of birds, nature, the outdoors, America, and painting.
Novelist. Her novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, etc) may be enjoyed simply for the magic of the language, the resourceful plotting, the wit and gently satirical style. But they also illustrate the social values of the traditional, non-commercial, middle and upper class English life of her time, especially the challenges and restricted choices confronting young women. In her own life, she resisted intense pressure to marry, which would have permanently ended her career, and even broke off a short engagement. By choosing the greater but still very restricted independence of remaining unmarried, she gave up social position and any chance to improve her pinched finances, but was able to have her career and keep writing until her untimely death.
Religious leader. He variously pronounced himself the forerunner of or the actual embodiment of the awaited 12th Imam of Shiite belief and was eventually executed for heresy. His sect was referred to as Babism. A follower, Baha-Allah, developed Bahaism.