Greatest American

Scott Hardie | July 9, 2015
Who was the greatest American person who was never president?

Samir Mehta | July 9, 2015
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Scott Hardie | July 10, 2015
This reminds me of debates that we used to have over the definition of "greatness" in determining artist rank in Rock Block.

The word can mean what you want it to mean. To me it means the most esteemed, the most respected, the most important, the most iconic, the foremost. This correlates to similar notions of most accomplished or most good, but is not necessarily the same as those, since plenty of Americans have done world-changing works of good in fields like science and medicine without much recognition. Similarly, some artists are held in high regard even if their work didn't accomplish much "practical" good.

Samir Mehta | July 10, 2015
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Samir Mehta | July 10, 2015
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Steve West | July 10, 2015
In a similar vein:

Thurgood Marshall
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thomas Edison
Robert Oppenheimer
Bill Gates
Andrew Carnegie

If I were forced to pick one of the above, it would probably be Edison.

Scott Hardie | July 17, 2015
Excellent lists. Way more names that I would have come up with. :-) All of them are solid and defensible answers.

I would bet that most people's first thought would be Benjamin Franklin, since he strikes me as the most famous/respected/accomplished Founding Father who was not a president. He's on our currency, he's in our national mythology, and he's practically an honorary president. (I would not be surprised to discover that something like 10% of Americans think he WAS president.)

My own answer would probably be Martin Luther King, who may have done more to heal our legacy of racial injustice and division than anyone else, ultimately giving his life for the cause. He obviously had many enemies in his life, but today he's almost universally respected.

Of the cultural possibilities, I'd have to say that Mark Twain is our best representative. His wit and his sense of Americana are legendary, and if memory serves, he was the first American artist who the rest of the world took seriously. He might be the best representative of ordinary American life producing greatness.