1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [117]
Sinclair, Harry F. (1876–1956) The founder of Sinclair Oil Corporation (now merged into Atlantic Richfield Company), Sinclair was at the heart of the infamous Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, in which Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall gave Sinclair a no-bid lease on a naval oil reserve known as the Teapot Dome in return for a bribe. Sinclair was acquitted on bribery and conspiracy charges, but served 6.5 months for contempt of court and contempt of the U.S. Senate.
Sinclair, Upton (1878–1968) Sinclair burst onto the literary scene in 1906 with The Jungle, a novel set in the stockyards of Chicago and exposing, in vividly nauseating detail, the sordid practices of the meat-packing industry, which greedily purveyed tainted meat to the American masses. The novel presented the meatpackers as a melodramatic metaphor for the worst of American big business: a heartless monolith willing to sicken or even kill the public for the sake of profit. The book spurred Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act.
Singer, Isaac Bashevis (1904–1991) Born in Poland, Singer immigrated to the United States in 1935, becoming a citizen in 1943. He wrote novels and short stories in Yiddish (though they became best known to American readers through English translation) and evoked the world of Jewish life in pre-Holocaust Poland as well as the immigrant experience in the United States. Singer received the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Sirica, John (1904–1992) The undistinguished chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Sirica was thrust into the national spotlight when he presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars (Nixon’s “Plumbers”) in 1973. His demand that President Richard M. Nixon turn over his tape recordings of White House conversations triggered the Constitutional crisis that precipitated Nixon’s downfall and resignation.
Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake, 1831–1890) In youth, Sitting Bull earned a reputation as a fierce warrior and was revered for his bravery, strength, generosity, and wisdom. His fame and influence spread far beyond his own Hunkpapa Sioux tribe, and he became a living legend in both white and red America. With chiefs Crazy Horse and Gall, Sitting Bull led the resistance against the white invasion of the sacred Black Hills after gold was discovered there in 1874. Following the annihilation of General Custer’s command at the Little Bighorn in 1876, Sitting Bull and his closest followers fled to Canada. Upon his return to the United States in 1881, he was imprisoned for two years and then sent to Standing Rock Reservation. In 1883, he traveled as a performer with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. In 1890, Sitting Bull became identified with a Native religious movement known as the Ghost Dance, which whites greatly feared. He was killed during an attempt to arrest him.
Skinner, B. F. (1904–1990) Psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner built on the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov and American psychologist John B. Watson to create a human psychology based on behaviorism—a system of physiological responses to stimuli in the environment. Praised by some for bringing scientific clarity and rigor to psychology, he was condemned by others for oversimplifying human behavior. In either view, his was undeniably a profound influence on modern psychology and sociology.
Sloan, Alfred P., Jr. (1875–1966) In 1920, when he was vice-president of General Motors (he later became chairman), Sloan introduced a new concept in the marketing of technological goods: planned obsolescence. With the automobile market stagnant by the end of the 1910s and the pace of genuine technological innovation insufficiently