1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [44]
Frost, Robert (1874–1963) Frost was born in California but lived most of his life in New England, which was the setting for much of his poetry. Although his work was in some ways backward looking—often portraying rural life in New England and always composed in traditional rhymed verse—Frost tackled timeless issues of the human condition and was a virtuoso of American colloquial speech. His realist sensibility and his lyrical style made Frost the most popular of 20th-century American poets.
Fuller, Margaret (1810–1850) Fuller was a part of the literary circle that gathered around Ralph Waldo Emerson, with whom she shared an enthusiasm for the Transcendentalist philosophy, which saw divine inspiration in all objects of nature. During 1839–1844, Fuller led classes (she called them “conversations”) for women on the subjects of literature, education, mythology, and philosophy. Her purpose was to enrich the lives of women and to bring them to a place of social equality. Her Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) is regarded as an important feminist work.
Fuller, R. Buckminster (1895–1983) Best known as the inventor of the geodesic dome, an elegant multipurpose structural design patented in 1953, Fuller advocated engineering and design on self-sustaining ecological principles that exploited renewable resources in order to ensure the future of the planet he called “Spaceship Earth.” Fuller’s genius was the application of visionary design to immediate, practical needs.
Fulton, Robert (1765–1815) Fulton’s first ambition was to become a painter, but failing to win critical and commercial success, he turned to engineering and invention instead. He designed a system of inland waterways and canals, a practical submarine, a steam warship, and, most famously, in 1808, a sidewheel steamboat called the North River Steamboat of Clermont—but popularly dubbed the Clermont—which plied the Hudson as the first practical steam-powered vessel.
Galbraith, John Kenneth (1908–2006) Raised in Toronto, Galbraith did his advanced work in economics in the United States and served as an adviser to President John F. Kennedy as well as his ambassador to India from 1961 to 1963. Galbraith challenged conventional economic wisdom by calling for less consumer spending and more spending on government programs. His policies shaped the Democratic agenda of JFK and Lyndon Johnson and contributed to the modern concept of the American welfare state.
Gallatin, Albert (1761–1849) Born in Switzerland, Gallitin immigrated to the United States when he was 19. He was a vigorous anti-Federalist and ally of Thomas Jefferson, who appointed him the nation’s fourth secretary of the Treasury. Gallatin introduced a new simplicity in government, which drastically reduced the public debt. He was instrumental in implementing Jefferson’s ideal of a minimized federal administration.
Gallaudet, Thomas (1787–1851) Gallaudet founded the first American school for the deaf in the belief that persons with this disability could be fully educated and had a right to such an education. After graduating from Yale in 1805, Gallaudet studied institutions for the deaf in Europe, then returned to the United States in 1816 and founded the American Asylum for Deaf Mutes at Hartford, Connecticut, obtaining for this a land grant from the U.S. Congress—the first instance of federal aid to the disabled. Gallaudet’s school became the nation’s principal training center for instructors of the deaf. Gallaudet’s 1825 Plan of a Seminary for the Education of Instructors of Youth included a proposal for the special education of the disabled and for the professional training of teachers of all types of students. In 1856, Amos Kendall founded a small school for the deaf and the blind in Washington, D.C.; later headed by Gallaudet’s son, it was named Gallaudet College