1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [13]
Bradley, Omar N. (1893–1981) Bradley commanded 12th Army Group in the European Theater during World War II, earning promotion to five-star rank and, because of his straightforward approach, disdaining ceremony and the trappings of lofty rank, earned from journalist Ernie Pyle the sobriquet of “The G.I. General.” After the war, Bradley was named the first chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (1949–1953).
Bradstreet, Anne (c. 1612–1672) Born Anne Dudley in England, she was 16 when she married Simon Bradstreet and, at 18, sailed with him (and other Puritans) to a new life on Massachusetts Bay. While bearing and raising eight children, Anne Bradstreet wrote some of the first English-language poems in North America. A number of these were first published (in England) in 1650 as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, but the very best—a series entitled Contemplations—remained unpublished until the 20th century.
Brady, Mathew (1823–1896) Brady opened a daguerreotype studio in New York City in 1844 and another in Washington, D.C., in 1848. In 1852, he opened a famous and successful gallery in New York, in 1852. The wealthy, powerful, and prominent came to Brady for portraits—which endure as valuable historical documents—but it is on the work of his staff of some twenty photographers during the Civil War that Brady’s greatest fame rests.
Brandeis, Louis (1856–1941) As a young man, Brandeis earned a reputation as “the people’s attorney,” often fighting the interests of big finance and big business, especially trusts and monopolies. The reform-minded Woodrow Wilson appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1916—he was the first Jew to sit on the high court—and he embarked on a 23-year career in which he steered a brilliant middle course between government authority and individual liberty.
Brando, Marlon (1924–2004) Born in Omaha, Brando moved to New York City in 1943 to study acting at the famed Dramatic Workshop of Stella Adler. Here he imbibed his first lessons in “the method,” an approach to acting first developed by the Russian Konstantin Stanislavski, by which an actor learns actually to feel the emotions he wishes to portray. The following year he made a successful Broadway debut in I Remember Mama, then in 1947 gained national attention with his electrifying portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire and repeated his role on screen in 1951. From this point on, he was generally considered the most influential actor of his generation.
Brant, Joseph (1742–1807) Called Thayendanegea by the Mohawks, Brant was educated at Moor’s Charity School for Indians in Lebanon, Connecticut, and converted to the Anglican church. Well versed in the English language and in history, he became an interpreter for an Anglican missionary and coauthored a Mohawk translation of The Book of Common Prayer and the Gospel of Mark. Believing that American independence would result in the usurpation of all Indian land, Brant fought on the side of the British during the American Revolution, visiting terror upon the New York frontier. After the war, however, he become an advocate for peace between whites and Indians and settled on a land grant in Canada.
Braun, Wernher von (1912–1977) In youth, Wernher von Braun became fascinated with rocketry and in the 1930s studied the subject under a grant from the German military. By the mid 1930s, Braun was directing rocket research for the German government and during World War II developed the V-2 long-range ballistic missile, which was used against London and other targets. After the war, Braun surrendered to U.S. troops, and despite his Nazi affiliations, was allowed to immigrate to the United States, where he became chief of the U.S. Army ballistic missile program. Later, he was named director of the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Braun directed much of the early U.S. space program, specializing in the development of booster systems, including the one that sent American astronauts to the moon.
Brice, Fanny (1891