1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [7]
Baruch, Bernard (1870–1965) Starting out as a Wall Street office boy, Baruch became wealthy as a stock market speculator and was appointed chairman of the War Industries Board by President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. After the victory, he served as Wilson’s top adviser in negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. Baruch later served President Franklin Roosevelt as an adviser during World War II and was instrumental after that war in formulating United Nations policy regarding the control of atomic energy.
Beamer, Todd (1968–2001) A New Jersey resident who worked for the Oracle software company, Beamer was one of 37 passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 out of Newark and bound for San Francisco. When Islamic terrorists hijacked the airliner as part of a cluster of suicide attacks in which hijacked planes were crashed into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Beamer and other passengers fought back, attempting to wrest control of the airplane from the terrorists. Over an open cell phone connection, Beamer was heard to say “Let’s roll,” apparently as a signal to the other passengers. The phrase became a verbal icon of heroic resistance on this day. Beamer, the other passengers and crew, as well as the hijackers were killed when Flight 93 crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
Beard, Charles A. and Mary R. (1874–1948 and 1876–1958) The Beards met and married as college students and, both together and separately, wrote groundbreaking works of American history and social history, including the coauthored Rise of American Civilization (1927), perhaps the most influential work of American history published in the 20th century. Both of the Beards were lifelong activists for liberal social causes, and Mary Beard was a pioneering scholar of women’s history.
Beecher, Catharine (1800–1878) Eldest daughter of revivalist preacher Lyman Beecher, Catharine Beecher worked to advance the cause of public education in America and to define and establish the role of women in American society. Although she was a fierce advocate of equal rights for women, her most influential book, A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1841), was an effort to define and standardize homemaking practices and to exalt domestic values, founded on the proposition that a woman’s place is in the home—the arena from which she could most profoundly influence American society.
Beecher, Henry Ward (1813–1887) The eighth of the thirteen children of revivalist preacher Lyman Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher earned national renown for his oratorical eloquence and his enlightened, even scientific approach to religion and society, which included advocacy of woman suffrage, the theory of evolution, and scientifically based analysis and criticism of the Bible.
Belasco, David (1853–1931) Either as playwright or producer, Belasco was associated with no fewer than 347 plays. The vast majority were undistinguished as literature, but were great commercial successes. The association of his name with an actor or a play guaranteed a full house. He innovated production techniques, emphasizing sensational realism, lavish production values, and special effects (mostly with lighting). Routinely transforming unknown actors into stars, Belasco pioneered American show business as truly Big Business.
Bell, Alexander Graham (1847–1922) Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Bell immigrated to Canada and then to the United States, where he worked on developing and popularizing his father’s innovations in teaching the deaf and mute to speak. Bell was well established as a pioneering audiologist when he began working on a means of transmitting sound by electricity. The result in 1876 was the telephone, patented on March 7, 1876. Bell prevailed through a blizzard of patent suits, became wealthy (as principal stockholder