1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [86]
McCormick, Cyrus (1809–1884) McCormick was raised in rural Virginia, where his father was a farmer, blacksmith, and sometime inventor. Cyrus McCormick had little formal education, but spent most of his time in his father’s workshop. In 1831, he began working on a mechanical reaper, and by 1834 had sufficiently perfected the horse-drawn device to secure a patent. The McCormick reaper revolutionized agriculture, accomplishing in a single hour what took 20 hours by hand labor. It made possible large-scale farming—and without slave labor. With John Deere’s “Grad Detour” plow, the reaper was instrumental in opening up the American West to agricultural settlement on a vast scale.
McClellan, George B. (1826–1885) When President Abraham Lincoln appointed McClellan to command the Army of the Potomac in May 1861, the Union press hailed the dashing officer as the “Young Napoleon.” With great skill, McClellan transformed a blue-uniformed rabble into a disciplined army, yet he repeatedly avoided decisive combat. McClellan’s overly cautious approach prompted Lincoln to diagnose him as having a “case of the slows,” and the president relieved him of major command. McClellan’s lack of aggressiveness prolonged the bloody Civil War.
McGillivray, Alexander (circa 1759–1793) Of mixed European and Indian blood, McGillivray was chief of the Creek Indians and successfully resisted white invasion of Creek tribal lands for years. To achieve this, he fought alongside the British during the American Revolution, then, after the war, negotiated an alliance with Spanish interests in America. In 1789, he was finally able to negotiate a favorable treaty with President George Washington’s secretary of war, Henry Knox, which set a limit to white American settlement. McGillivray was one of very few Native American leaders who enjoyed significant success in retaining for his tribe both its tribal identity and its lands in the face of white American expansion—at least for the span of a generation.
McGovern, George (1922– ) Democratic U.S. senator from South Dakota, McGovern emerged as an anti-Vietnam War presidential candidate, challenging Republican incumbent Richard M. Nixon in 1972. McGovern not only advocated an immediate end to the war in Vietnam, he called for a broad agenda of social and economic reforms that recalled Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” program of the 1960s. McGovern’s liberal stance failed to unify the Democratic Party, and he lost to Nixon by a landslide.
McGuffey, William Holmes (1800–1873) A professor at Miami University of Ohio, McGuffey wrote and published his first reading and spelling elementary instruction text in 1836. Over the years—and into the 20th century—the McGuffey Readers would not only teach generations of Americans to read and to spell, but would also impart instruction in religion, morality, ethics, and patriotism, helping to create many aspects of a common American cultural heritage.
McKinley, William (1843–1901) Republican McKinley entered the White House in 1897. Amid a political and popular clamor for war with Spain—for the purpose of “liberating” Cuba—McKinley ultimately acquiesced, and the brief Spanish-American War (1898) transformed Cuba from a Spanish colony into an American client state. The war also resulted in U.S. annexation of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam (and it also helped to propel the annexation of Hawaii). Thus McKinley presided over an intense period of U.S. global expansion, which transformed the nation into a major world power and an imperialist force. McKinley’s postwar popularity was such that he was reelected in 1900; however, while attending the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, he was shot at pointblank range on September 6, 1901 by a self-proclaimed anarchist, Leon Czolgosz. He died on September 14