George Washington, William Penn, John Paul Jones, John Singleton Copley, Benjamin Franklin, Louis Agassiz, Dorothea Lynde Dix, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Clara Barton, Robert Edward Lee, John James Audubon, Robert Fulton, George Peabody, Daniel Webster, Augustus St. Gaudens, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, William Hickling Prescott, Phillips Brooks, Samuel Clemens, Joe Jefferson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James McNeill Whistler, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jane Addams, Luther Burbank, Edward Alexander MacDowell, Thomas Alva Edison

“This is the year for magnifying the biography of men and women of affairs. It is almost amusing to see what epidemics there are in public taste, literary and educational. In the pulpit and on the platform incidents from the lives of men and women arrest and retain the attention of congregations or audiences, and in any article a biographical reference is sure to be read with care. This accounts in part for the appearance of highly attractive biographies like this by Mary Stoyell Stimpson, in which thirty Americans, men and women in whom children have a genuine interest, are written about in a delightful way. Of course, there are the traditional men and women from Washington and William Penn to Thoreau and Louisa M. Alcott but there are also included Mark Twain, Joe Jefferson, Whistler, Jane Addams, Luther Burbank and Thomas A. Edison.” -The Journal of Education