1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [77]
Lewis, Meriwether (1774–1809) Lewis was a U.S. Army officer of great promise when he became personal secretary to President Thomas Jefferson, who knew the young man’s family and regarded Lewis as a protégé. Together, Lewis and the president planned a great expedition through the Far West, and when the Louisiana Purchase was approved, Congress financed the first overland expedition to the Pacific Northwest. With his handpicked co-captain, William Clark, Lewis led a small band from St. Louis to the Pacific and back—a journey that spanned 1804 to 1806. Lewis and Clark returned with a great narrative journal of the expedition, a wealth of scientific and geographical data, and the foundation of good relations with several Indian tribes. It was the opening of the American West.
Lewis, Sinclair (1885–1951) Lewis’ fiction combined realism with broadly drawn satire to skewer complacent and obtuse aspects of American society. His masterpiece is the 1920 Main Street, which presents a full-length portrait of mid-American society. Babbitt, which followed in 1922, is a story of American complacency—so persuasive that the word “Babbittry” entered the lexicon of American social criticism. In 1930, Lewis became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Lichtenstein, Roy (1923–1997) Trained under the gritty American painter Reginald Marsh, Lichtenstein began his art career painting western American subjects and venturing into Abstract Impressionism, the dominant style of the early 1950s. In 1960, however, he began to incorporate aspects of Abstract Expressionism with pop culture images, including cartoon figures. Increasingly, he exploited the look of comic-strip art, often magnifying the dot pattern used in four-color pulp-press printing. The work struck a chord and became an icon of American art in the 1960s, launching the “Pop art” movement.
Liddy, G. Gordon (1930– ) Liddy was a former FBI special agent who worked for the Nixon reelection campaign’s Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), bringing to CREEP his expertise as the chief of the “Plumbers,” the illegal covert unit the president used to stop information leaks. With E. Howard Hunt, Liddy planned the break-in of Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate complex in 1972. The object was to sabotage the Democratic presidential campaign. The operation was bungled, Liddy and the other “Watergate burglars” were arrested, and Liddy was ultimately convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping. He served four and a half years of a twenty-year sentence before President Jimmy Carter’s commutation freed him.
Liliuokalani (1838–1917) Lydia Kamakaeha was the sister of David Kalakaua, who was chosen king of Hawaii in 1874. When the heir apparent, Kalakaua’s brother, W.P. Leleiohoku, died in 1877, Lydia became heir presumptive and received her royal name, Liliuokalani. She ascended the Hawaiian throne in January 1891, when King Kalakaua died. The first woman to reign over Hawaii, she was also the last Hawaiian sovereign. Sanford Dole, the American-born head of the Missionary Party, asked her to abdicate in January 1893. When she refused, he simply declared her deposed, created a provisional government, and sought annexation by the United States. To avoid a civil war, Liliuokalani stepped down, but appealed to President Grover Cleveland to restore her. Cleveland gave the order, but Dole refused to obey it. A royalist insurrection erupted but was quickly suppressed, and on January 24, 1895, in exchange