Most famous Americans

[Bart]

The results of our systems of education/indoctrination.


[url]http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2008/02/high_schoolers. php[/url]


High schoolers name women, black Americans 'most famous'
<DIV align=left>Greg Toppo, USA TODAY, February 5, 2008



Here's a quiz: Get a pencil and paper and jot down the 10 most famous Americans in history. No presidents or first ladies allowed.


Who tops your list?


Ask teenagers, and they overwhelmingly choose African-Americans and women, a study shows. It suggests that the "cultural curriculum" that most kidsâ€â€￾and by extension, their parentsâ€â€￾experience in school increasingly emphasizes the stories of Americans who are not necessarily dead, white or male.


Researchers gave blank paper and pencils to a diverse group of 2,000 high school juniors and seniors in all 50 states and told them: "Starting from Columbus to the present day, jot down the names of the most famous Americans in history."


Topping the list: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman. Three of the top fiveâ€â€￾and six of the top 10â€â€￾are women.


(snip)

 

[White Shogun]

 

[Tom Iron]

Bart,

Yeah, I saw that on Amren.

I know that most of our young people aren't what you would call smart, and their is a sizeable segment of them who are downright dull-witted. However, every so often, you run into a young person/teenager who is quite sharp. I wonder how that occurs when they are subjected for years to an icredible amount of brainwashing. I imagine their teachers are frustrated by them as well. The teachers must ask themselves the same questions. After all their efforts, the kid just won't respond.

Interesting.

Tom Iron...

 

[son_of_Radovan]

"Sam Wineburg, the Stanford University education and history professor who led the study along with Chauncey Monte-Sano of the University of Maryland, says the prominence of black Americans signals 'a profound change' in how we see history..."

Surprise, surprise.


( USA Today story )

(Taube Center for Jewish Studies - near bottom of page)

 

[Poacher]

Ben Franklin
Thomas Edison
Babe Ruth
Charles Lindbergh
The Wright Brothers
Alexander Graham Bell
Neil Armstrong
Douglas MacArthur
George Patton
Robert E Lee

There's my ten in no particular order.

Edited by: Poacher

 

[jaxvid]

Ten more

William Shockley
Marchese Guglielmo Marconi
Charles Goodyear
George Westinghouse
Daniel Boone
Davy Crockett
Buffalo Bill Cody
John L Sullivan
Eli Whitney
Walt Disney

 

[Lance Alworth]

Mine would be

Robert E. Lee
Stonewall Jackson
Nathan Bedford Forrest
George Patton
Edgar Allan Poe
Henry Ford
Charles Babbage
Ben Franklin
Dan Marino
Barry GoldwaterEdited by: Lance Alworth

 

[Bart]

I'm having a hard time making a list. A most famous list written by an older guy wouldn't be the same as that of a young kid. And I think it's easy to confuse most famous with most influential, most important, or most admired.


Nikola Tesla The world owes this naturalized citizenan eternal debt of gratitude.


Westinghouse


Henry Ford Automobiles and The Dearborn Independent. Awesome.


Shockley


Washington


Jefferson


Nathan BedfordForrest


Tail Gunner JoeHe knew the score. A true patriot.


Rocky Marciano For obvious reasons.


Roy Rogers Boyhood idol.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

It's a tough list to come up with (given all the wonderful Americans through history). However, here's my list...

- Patrick Henry
- Samuel Adams
- Ethan Allen
- Robert E. Lee
- Jim Bridger
- Samuel Langhorne Clemens
- Sam Houston
- Alvin York
- Robert Welch Jr.
- Dr.Ron Paul

 

[White Shogun]

There is a difference also between compiling a list of the most 'famous' Americans, and those Americans who are most WORTHY of being 'famous.'

For example, there is no doubt that to the average American, Britney Spears and Brad Pitt are more famous than say, Thomas Paine or Ethan Allen. Without at least a passing familiarity with American history, all that people have to choose from are celebrities. Add to that the forced indoctrination of certain celebrity types in our educational system, and the resultant list of Oprahs and Martin Luther Kings is inevitable.

 

[Bronk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ogCc8ObiwQ

 

[Tom Iron]

Gentlemen,

I wonder what would happen to a kid who put Nathan Bedford Forrest on a list of famous Americans?

Tom Iron...

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Tom, I guess that would depend on what the kiddid with the list and where the kid lived.

 

[Tom Iron]

Would they still give him a pass down south, or would they try to tear the skin from his bones like here in the north?

Tom Iron...

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Like I said before, it would depend on where he is. Ifthe kidwas presenting it in school in my home region, the65% black Mississippi Delta, and was going to the 95%+ black public (government) schools, they'd surely be in danger. Ifthe kidwas in a public school in almost all white northeast Mississippi, somewhere around Iuka, they'd probably get cheered for it. It would just depend on where in the South. I'd say because of the mass integration and liberal teachers in most urban schools, the kid would catch some flak for it. In certain cities though, and rural areas, they would probably be ok with it.

 

[screamingeagle]

MLK deserves to be on the list of the most famous americans. Can you think of anyone who caused more racial strife and division in our nation. MLK should be on the list of the most imfamous americans. What they should have asked was who was the most important.
My list of the most important, excluding presidents and first ladies. (In no particular order.)
Thomas Edison
Henry Ford
Wright brothers/Glen Curtis
US Grant
Audie Murphy
Dick Bong
Ike (As general)
Babe Ruth
Lewis and Clark
Daniel Boone
Honorable mention: Eli Whitney, Robert Fulton, John Holland, The guy who invented the telegraph, Eddie Rickenbacker, AJ Foyd. Winfield Scott.

 

[jaxvid]

Harriet Tubmania!
Some funny, and spot on commentary by Steve Sailer on this story.



Here's the list chosen by 2000 juniors and seniors, no Presidents allowed:


1. Martin Luther King Jr.: 67%

2. Rosa Parks: 60%

3. Harriet Tubman: 44%

4. Susan B. Anthony: 34%

5.Benjamin Franklin: 29%

6. Amelia Earhart: 25%

7. Oprah Winfrey: 22%

8. Marilyn Monroe: 19%

9. Thomas Edison: 18%

10. Albert Einstein: 16%


All I have to say is that Sojourner Truth must be feeling pretty ripped off not to make the list.

Seriously, the absence of Jackie Robinson on this list shows how feminized schools have gotten, which explains a lot about the much higher dropout rate among boys.

This list also might explain a bit about why Hispanics and Asians aren't getting excited over Obama's candidacy. They must be asking, "Black this and black that. Why aren't we getting our fair share of our own pseudo-heroes pounded into the brains of children?"


About 20 years ago, E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy survey revealed that more high school students could identify Harriet Tubman than Stalin or Churchill. I recall William F. Buckley wondering who in the world Harriet Tubman could be. If she was more important than Stalin, how could he have gone his whole life without ever hearing of her? And if she wasn't important, why was she famous?


How naive we all were back then!


I first heard about Harriet Tubman in my elementary school reader around 1969 or 1970. I was fascinated by the concept of her Underground Railroad and couldn't wait for the part where the slaves tunnel their way from the South to Canada, although, as I recall, the story turned out to be disappointingly lacking in detail about how they built the locomotives and laid the track.


In contrast, here's The Atlantic Monthly's recent list of "100 Most Influential Americans," as chosen by various experts in a survey overseen, I believe, by Ross Douthat. The top Americans who weren't Presidents on The Atlantic's list were:



5 Alexander Hamilton
6 Benjamin Franklin
7 John Marshall
8 Martin Luther King Jr.
9 Thomas Edison
11 John D. Rockefeller
14 Henry Ford
16 Mark Twain
19 Thomas Paine
20 Andrew Carnegie

So, three overlaps (Ben, MLK, and Thomas Alva) in the top 10 but only 2 more (Einstein and Susan B. Dollar) of the students' list showed up anywhere on The Atlantic's top 100.

On The Atlantic's list, there were 8 blacks and 9 women, but no black women, in contrast to the 3 in the high school students' top 10. White males fill 83 of the top 100 slots, and 28 of the top 29

 

[GWTJ]

Kids today have virtually no knowledge of history. And fame is a fleeting thing anyway. The kids twenty years from now will have a new list of popular celebrities to vote for.

For example, I know of three black Americans who's fame towers over Oprah. These entertainers, when they were on top, were as famous as anyone could be.

First, Muhammad Ali, in his day the most recognizable face in the world. Today, I doubt many kids know much more about him or even care to.

Next is Michael Jackson, once the pop icon of the 80's, he is barely a memory in this rap age and what memories of him exist are white skin jokes and pedophile jokes.

Last, and most surprising, is Michael Jordan. He was the ultimate famous black man in this country just ten years ago. Apealing to all kids and most adults. I am amazed at how fast his fame has fallen.

These three people no doubt would have made any top ten list when they were in their prime. So, we seem to have two kinds of fame. We have temporary fame, like Oprah and the people above, but then we have a more lasting kind of fame. This kind of fame seems much harder to achieve. Some sort of social, political or scientific contribution seems necessary to achieve long lasting fame.

Also, being the first person to do something will also bring a more lasting fame. For example, there have been more than a few men to land on the moon, but Neil Armstrong will remain famous because he was the first. Kids today are doing all sorts of amazing things on motorcycles these days in the X games. But we only remember Evil Knievel.

In a thousand years, the only person in the 20th century that might still be talked about could be Adolph Hitler. Mentioning his name is still the best way I know to get a conversation going.

 

[screamingeagle]

If I were a Marxist parent, I would be upset over this. No Eugene Debs, no Clarence Darrow, no Jackie Robinson, No Joe Louis, or Muhammad Ali, or Jack Johnson. No Frederick Douglas. No Big Bill Heyward. Today's children are not being brainwashed correstly. Where is the next generation of Commies going to come from? (As if I care...)

 

[Lance Alworth]

If I were a Marxist parent, I would be upset over this. No Eugene Debs, no Clarence Darrow, no Jackie Robinson, No Joe Louis, or Muhammad Ali, or Jack Johnson. No Frederick Douglas. No Big Bill Heyward. Today's children are not being brainwashed correstly. Where is the next generation of Commies going to come from? (As if I care...)

Not to mention no Jesse Jackson, no Al Sharpton, No Morris Dees, no Mumiya Abu-Jamal, no William Kunstler, no Ruth Bader Ginsburg, no Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, no Puffy Combs, and no Barack Obama. It's such a tragedy that these fine Americans were snubbed in this farce of a top ten list (note sarcasm)Edited by: Lance Alworth