Now you've all had time to consider this question before.Who WAS the greatest American of the 20th century?

Question

It's an unbiased question. no strings and no joke! I think that about covers it!
WHO? In your opinion WAS the greatest Male and Female American in the 20th century...?

Answer 1

Thomas Alva Edison, Inventor - our lives would be radically different if he had not existed. It's possible that many of the inventions might have been eventually invented, but it's UNLIKELY that there would have been the successful integration of ingenuity industrial output and business savvy which has plagued other inventors, it's unlikely that would have all been coordinated as well and closely as it was.

One need look no further than at Edison's nemesis Nicolai Tesla to see how inventors regularly get/got screwed and how less beneficial to society those inventors therefore are, when they are unable to benefit from the results of their inventions.

Answer 2

I would have to split this question up to first half and second half of the 20th Century.

First half: (1900 - 1949) I would have to say FDR. Bringing the USA out of the Great Depression and leading us through WW II, only to die before the war concluded.

Second half: (1950 - 1999) I would have to say Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Simply put there was not a better orator in the last half of the 20th Century. If there were not Jim Crow Laws in place then there would not have been a need for the services of MLK. A person does not need to be labeled "Liberal" or "Conservative" to see the value that MLK brought to the masses. The impact he had has crossed the racial lines within the USA and benefitted many.

Just my sole perspective on the first question posed.

Answer 3

To my mind, Martin Luther King, Jr. is far and away the greatest American of the 20th century. The only other contender who comes close is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was elected president an unrivaled four times, and because of his WWII leadership he means as much to the U.S. as Winston Churchill does to England. The fact that King, who never held elective office and was assassinated before his 40th birthday, is even in the running against such a man says all that needs to be said about the great anti-segregationist leader's contribution to American history.

Answer 4

I'm completely with classmate. I usually insist on my own answer, but I can't put it better than he has. FDR and Martin Luther King -- the greatest.

But -- we need a woman in here, and my choice would be Susan B. Anthony, though I'm real ignorant of the suffragette leadership.

Answer 5

I was going to say Edison, but he did nearly all of his important work in the 19th century.

So I'd vote for Jonas Salk, who developed the first vaccine for polio. No politician has benefited mankind so much as scientists and inventors.

Answer 6

i assume i could p.c.. William Faulkner because of the fact the ideal American novelist of the 20 th century although if Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Wharton, James, Wright, Heller, Barth, Pynchon and Ellison are additionally tremendously extreme on my record.

Answer 7

Simply in terms of who was responsible for helping the most people, I would say Dr. Jonas Salk for finding a vaccine against polio. In a very short time, a disease that regularly crippled or killed thousands of people a year was wiped out. For the greatest woman, Rosa Parks.

Answer 8

Martin Luther King

Answer 9

A man of dignity and poise, Martin Luther King for jump starting the civil rights movements.

Answer 10

Mohammed Ali