54 Notable alumni of
Earlham College
Updated:
Earlham College is 1342nd in the world, 469th in North America, and 439th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 54 notable alumni from Earlham College sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Juan Carlos Esteban De Los Santos
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision directoractortelevision producerexecutive producer
- Biography
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Michael Carlyle Hall is an American actor and musician. He is best known for playing the role of the titular character in the Showtime series Dexter and David Fisher in the HBO drama series Six Feet Under. He won a Golden Globe Award for the former, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and received six total nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, which ties the record for most nominations in the category without a win. He reprised his role of Dexter Morgan in Dexter: New Blood, Dexter: Resurrection, and performed the internal monologue in Dexter: Original Sin.
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Margaret Hamilton
- Enrolled in Earlham College
- In 1958 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in mathematics
- Occupations
- computer scientistengineerbusinesspersonmathematician
- Biography
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Margaret Elaine Hamilton is an American computer scientist. She directed the Software Engineering Division at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, where she led the development of the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo Guidance Computer for the Apollo program. She later founded two software companies, Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Michael Shellenberger
- Occupations
- authorenvironmentalistecologistcultural anthropologist
- Biography
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Michael D. Shellenberger is an American author and journalist. He is the first endowed professor at the University of Austin, serving as CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech. Shellenberger is a prominent heterodox thinker on topics including climate change and homelessness. He also founded the online newsletter Public, which is the second largest Substack in news.
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Harold Urey
- Occupations
- chemistastronomerwriteruniversity teacherphysical chemist
- Biography
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Harold Clayton Urey ForMemRS was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in the development of the atom bomb, as well as contributing to theories on the development of organic life from non-living matter.
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Robert Quine
- Occupations
- composerguitarist
- Biography
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Robert Wolfe Quine was an American guitarist. A native of Akron, Ohio, Quine worked with a wide range of musicians, though he himself remained relatively unknown. Critic Mark Deming wrote that "Quine's eclectic style embraced influences from jazz, rock, and blues players of all stripes, and his thoughtful technique and uncompromising approach led to rewarding collaborations with a number of visionary musicians."
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Don Wildman
- Biography
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Don Wildman is a podcast and documentary host. He is the current host of the American History Hit podcast as well as the host and narrator of Mysteries at the Museum, Beyond the Unknown, Dark Tales with Don Wildman, and Buried Worlds with Don Wildman on the Travel Channel.
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Wendell Meredith Stanley
- Enrolled in Earlham College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science in chemistry
- Occupations
- virologistuniversity teacherwriterchemistbiochemist
- Biography
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Wendell Meredith Stanley was an American biochemist, virologist and Nobel laureate. Stanley's work contributed to lepracidal compounds, diphenyl stereochemistry, and the chemistry of the sterols. His research on the virus causing the mosaic disease in tobacco plants led to the isolation of a nucleoprotein which displayed tobacco mosaic virus activity.
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Andrew Ginther
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Andrew James Ginther is an American Democratic politician, the 53rd mayor of Columbus, Ohio. He has served since 2016. He previously served as President of Columbus City Council from 2011 until 2015.
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Manning Marable
- Occupations
- political scientistwriteranthropologistsociologistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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William Manning Marable was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. He founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. He wrote several texts and was active in numerous progressive political causes.
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Peter Suber
- Occupations
- university teacherphilosopher
- Biography
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Peter Dain Suber is an American philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, and Director of the Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP). Suber is known as a leading voice in the open access movement, and as the creator of the game Nomic.
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Zitkala-Sa
- Occupations
- writerhuman rights defenderpoetviolinist
- Biography
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Zitkala-Ša, also Zitkála-Šá, was a Yankton Dakota writer, editor, translator, musician, educator, and political activist. She was also known by her anglicized and married name, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin. She wrote several works chronicling her struggles with cultural identity, and the pull between the majority culture in which she was educated, and the Dakota culture into which she was born and raised. Her later books were among the first works to bring traditional Native American stories to a widespread white English-speaking readership.
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David Rovics
- Occupations
- singersinger-songwriterpeace activisttrade unionistmusician
- Biography
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David Stefan Rovics is an American indie singer/songwriter. His music concerns both topical subjects such as the Iraq War, anti-globalization, anarchism, and social justice issues, and also labor history. Rovics has been an outspoken critic of former president George W. Bush, the Republican Party, John Kerry, and the Democratic Party.
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Simone Leigh
- Occupations
- ceramicistfilmmakersculptorvideo artist
- Biography
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Simone Leigh is an American artist from Chicago with a studio in Brooklyn. She works in various media including sculpture, installations, video, performance, and social practice. Leigh has described her work as auto-ethnographic, and her interests include African art and vernacular objects, performance, and feminism. Her work is concerned with the marginalization of women of color and reframes their experience as central to society. Leigh has said that her work is focused on "Black female subjectivity," with an interest in complex interplays between various strands of history. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
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Frances Moore Lappé
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
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Frances Moore Lappé is an American researcher and author in the field of food and democracy policy. She is the author of 20 books including the 2.5-million-copy selling 1971 book Diet for a Small Planet, which the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History describes as "one of the most influential political tracts of the times." She has co-founded three organizations that explore the roots of hunger, poverty, and environmental crises, as well as solutions emerging worldwide through what she calls "living democracy". Her latest work is a report entitled Crisis of Trust: How Can Democracies Protect Against Dangerous Lies? with Max Boland and Rachel Madison. Recent books by Lappé include Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want, co-authored with Adam Eichen, and It’s Not Too Late: Crisis, Opportunity, and the Power of Hope. In 1987, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "revealing the political and economic causes of world hunger and how citizens can help to remedy them."
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Mat Johnson
- Occupations
- comics writernovelist
- Biography
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Mat Johnson is an American fiction writer who works in both prose and the comics format. In 2007, he was named the first USA James Baldwin Fellow by United States Artists.
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Zack Exley
- Years
- 1969-.. (age 57)
- Occupations
- fundraisingunion organizerprogrammer
- Biography
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Zack Exley is an American political and technology consultant.
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David Grosso
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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David Grosso is an American attorney and politician. He is a former at-large member of the Council of the District of Columbia who lives in Brookland. A native Washingtonian, he graduated from Earlham College and Georgetown University Law Center. Grosso is a member of the D.C. Bar. Following the completion of his second term on the D.C. Council, he joined the law firm Arent Fox as a lobbyist.
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Warder Clyde Allee
- Occupations
- writerecologistuniversity teacherzoologist
- Biography
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Warder Clyde "W.C." Allee was an American ecologist. He is recognized to be one of the great pioneers of American ecology. As an accomplished zoologist and ecologist, Allee was best known and recognized for his research on social behavior, aggregations and distributions of animals in aquatic as well as terrestrial environments. Allee attended Earlham College and upon his graduation in 1908, pursued advanced studies at the University of Chicago where he received his PhD and graduated summa cum laude in 1912.
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Joseph M. Dixon
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Joseph Moore Dixon was an American Republican politician from Montana. He served as a U.S. representative, senator, and the seventh governor of Montana. A businessman and a modernizer of Quaker heritage, Dixon was a leader of the Progressive Movement in Montana and nationally. He was the national chairman for Theodore Roosevelt running for the presidency as the candidate of the Progressive Party in 1912.
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Frederick Van Nuys
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Frederick Van Nuys was a United States senator from Indiana. Born in Falmouth, he attended the public schools and graduated from Earlham College (Richmond, Indiana) in 1898 and from Indiana Law School (now Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law) in 1900. He was admitted to the bar in 1900 and commenced practice in Shelbyville moving shortly afterward to Anderson. From 1906 to 1910 he was prosecuting attorney of Madison County and was a member of the Indiana Senate from 1913 to 1916, serving as president pro tempore in 1915. He moved to Indianapolis in 1916 and continued the practice of law; he was United States Attorney for the U.S. District of Indiana from 1920 to 1922.
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David B. Shear
- Occupations
- diplomat
- Biography
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David Bruce Shear is an American diplomat who was a career Foreign Service Officer. Shear served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs from July 2014 to June 2016. Prior to his nomination for this position, he served as United States Ambassador to Vietnam. He was also formerly deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the U.S. Department of State; he joined the State Department in 1982 and has served in Washington, Sapporo, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo.
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John Porter East
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitical scientistuniversity teacherpolitician
- Biography
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John Porter East was an American politician, attorney, and academic. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina from 1981 to 1986.
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Larry E. Overman
- Enrolled in Earlham College
- In 1965 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- university teacherchemist
- Biography
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Larry E. Overman is Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. He was born in Chicago in 1943. Overman obtained a B.A. degree from Earlham College in 1965, and he completed his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1969, under Howard Whitlock Jr. Professor Overman is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the recipient of the Arthur C. Cope Award in 2003, and he was awarded the Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry for 2008.
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Joel H. Elliott
- Occupations
- military officer
- Biography
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Joel Haworth Elliott was a Union major during and after the Civil War. Joining as a private in August 1861, with Company C, 2nd Indiana Cavalry Regiment. He saw action at the Battle of Shiloh, Battle of Perryville, Battle of Stones River, and was wounded twice. Joel Elliott was killed during the Battle of Washita River (also called the Washita Massacre), just west of present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma, on November 27, 1868.
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Luke Clippinger
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Luke H. Clippinger is an American politician and lawyer who has served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, representing the state's 46th district in Baltimore, since 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he has served as the speaker pro tempore of the Maryland House of Delegates since 2026.
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Richard Elihu Sloan
- Occupations
- lawyerjudgepolitician
- Biography
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Richard Elihu Sloan was an American jurist and politician, who served as associate justice of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona and as the 17th and final Governor of Arizona Territory. As an Associate Justice he served for 16 years, the longest service of any member of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court, and wrote over 150 legal opinions. As Governor he oversaw Arizona's transition from territory to statehood.
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David W. Dennis
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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David Worth Dennis II was an American attorney and Republican United States Representative from Indiana from 1969 to 1975.
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Eva Feldman
- Born in
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United States - Enrolled in Earlham College
- 1969-1973 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- researcherneurologist
- Biography
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Eva Lucille Feldman, M.D., Ph.D., is an American physician-scientist known for her work in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. She serves as the James W. Albers Distinguished University Professor of Neurology at the University of Michigan, as well as the Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology, Professor of Neurosurgery, and director of the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies and ALS Center of Excellence at Michigan Medicine.
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Harold Robert Aaron
- Occupations
- military personnel
- Biography
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Harold Robert Aaron was a lieutenant general in the United States Army.
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Maurice Manning
- Occupations
- poet
- Biography
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Maurice Manning is an American poet. His first collection of poems, Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions, was awarded the Yale Younger Poets Award, chosen by W.S. Merwin. Since then he has published four collections of poetry (with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Copper Canyon Press). He teaches English and Creative Writing at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he oversees the Judy Gaines Young Book Award, and is a member of the poetry faculty of the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.
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Jacob Piatt Dunn
- Occupations
- writerhistorianethnologistjournalistlibrarian
- Biography
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Jacob Piatt Dunn Jr. was an American historian, journalist, and author. A political writer and reformer, Dunn worked on ballot reform issues based on the Australian ballot system, authored a new Indianapolis city charter, and served as adviser to Indiana governor Thomas R. Marshall and U.S. Senator Samuel M. Ralston.
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Olive Rush
- Occupations
- paintermuralistartistillustrator
- Biography
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Olive Rush was a painter, illustrator, muralist, and an important pioneer in Native American art education. Her paintings are held in a number of private collections and museums, including: the Brooklyn Museum of New York City, the Haan Mansion Museum of Indiana Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
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Thomas Trueblood
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
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Thomas Clarkson Trueblood was an American professor of elocution and oratory and the first coach of the University of Michigan golf and debate teams. He was affiliated with the University of Michigan for 67 years from 1884 to 1951, and was a nationally known writer and speaker on oratory and debate. He founded UM's Department of Elocution and Oratory as well as the campus debate program. He became the subject of national media attention in 1903 when the Chicago Tribune ran an article stating that he was offering a new "course in love making." His golf teams won two NCAA National Championships and five Big Ten Conference championships. He was posthumously inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1981.
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Elephant Micah
- Occupations
- singer-songwriter
- Biography
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Elephant Micah is a musical band or stage name of southern Indiana songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joseph O'Connell. Recording mostly at home, O’Connell has produced an eclectic body of work since beginning the project in 2000. Elephant Micah's inconsistently available music has become a cult favorite among some lo-fi/indie and folk rock audiences.
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Joseph Henry Kibbey
- Occupations
- lawyerjudgepolitician
- Biography
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Joseph Henry Kibbey was an American attorney who served as Associate Justice of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court from 1889 to 1893 and Governor of Arizona Territory from 1905 to 1909. His legal career is most remembered for his efforts in the area of water law, his key legal contributions being the "Kibbey Decision", a legal ruling establishing the principle that "water belongs to the land", and creation of the legal framework for the Salt River Valley Water User's Association, a model for federal water projects in the American West. As governor, Kibbey was a leader in the effort to prevent Arizona and New Mexico territories from being combined into a single U.S. state.
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Glenn Thistlethwaite
- Occupations
- basketball coach
- Biography
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Glenn Franklin Thistlethwaite was an American football, basketball, baseball, and track and field coach. He served as the head football coach at Illinois College (1908), Earlham College (1909–1912), Northwestern University (1922–1926), the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1927–1931), Carroll College—now known as Carroll University—in Waukesha, Wisconsin (1932–1933), and the University of Richmond (1934–1941), compiling a career college football record of 117–74–16. Coaching at Northwestern from 1922 to 1926, Thistlethwaite compiled a 21–17–1 record, making him one of the most successful coaches in Northwestern Wildcats football history. In 1926, his team won a share of the Big Ten Conference title, only the second in school history, and his tenure sparked a revival in Northwestern football after a post-World War I decline. From 1927 to 1931, Thistlethwaite coached at Wisconsin, tallying a 26–16–3 mark. From 1934 to 1941, he coached at Richmond, where he oversaw the school's entry into the Southern Conference in 1936. Born in Franklin, Indiana in 1885, Thistlethwaite died at the age of 71, on October 6, 1956, of a heart attack at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia.
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Greg Porter
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Greg Porter is a Democratic member of the Indiana House of Representatives, representing the 96th District since 1992. He is a member of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus.
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J. Brent Bill
- Years
- 1951-.. (age 75)
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
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J. Brent Bill is an American author of Quaker spiritual literature. He is a graduate of Wilmington College and Earlham School of Religion and has worked as a pastor and writing coach.
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Margaret Hill McCarter
- Occupations
- novelistteacherwriter
- Biography
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Margaret Hill McCarter was an American teacher and novelist. She was the best-known and highest-paid novelist in Kansas at the time.
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Raymond Smiley Springer
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Raymond Smiley Springer was an American attorney and jurist who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana from 1939 to 1947.
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William Penn Nixon
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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William Penn Nixon Sr. was an American publisher and politician from Indiana. Following an extensive private education, Nixon graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and became involved in Ohio politics. He served one partial and one full term in the Ohio House of Representatives, then retired from elected politics. He founded a newspaper in Cincinnati, then sold his share to move to Chicago, Illinois. There, he became manager of the nascent Chicago Inter Ocean. He assumed the presidency of the company in 1876, holding it until his death. Nixon also served as president of the Associated Press and Collector of the Port of Chicago.
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Henry U. Johnson
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Henry Underwood Johnson was an American lawyer and politician who served four terms as a U.S. representative from Indiana from 1891 to 1899.
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Michael Seadle
- Occupations
- historianinformation scientistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Michael S. Seadle is an information scientist and historian. Until he retired he was a professor for digital libraries at the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin. He was Chair of the iSchools from 2014 to 2016. In 2017 he became the Executive Director with a term until March 2020. In 2016 he became one of the founders of the Humboldt-Elsevier Advanced Data and Text Centre (HEADT Centre) at Humboldt University of Berlin.
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Sara Gelser
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Sara Gelser Blouin is an American politician from Oregon. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
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Charles B. Timberlake
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Charles Bateman Timberlake was a U.S. representative from Colorado.
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Bill Lippert
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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William J. Lippert Jr., commonly known as Bill Lippert, is a former legislator and gay rights activist from the U.S. state of Vermont. He served 29 years in the Vermont House of Representatives as state representative of the Town of Hinesburg, from 1994 to 2022. He served as chair of the House Judiciary Committee for ten years, and then served as chair of the House Health Care Committee.
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Jonathan Clark Rogers
- Biography
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Jonathan Clark Rogers was President of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens from 1949 until 1950.
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Elizabeth Burchenal
- Occupations
- teachereducatorwriter
- Biography
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Flora Elizabeth Burchenal was an American educator and the first president of the American Folk Dance Society when it was founded in 1916. Journalist Ida Tarbell described Burchenal as "one of the 50 living women who have done the most for the welfare of the United States."
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Eugene S. Mills
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
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Eugene Sumner Mills was an American academic. He was the thirteenth President of the University of New Hampshire from 1974 to 1979. Mills attended Earlham College and Claremont Graduate University, earning a Ph.D. in psychology at the latter. He taught at Whittier College before coming to the University of New Hampshire. Mills was a member of the UNH faculty for 17 years starting in 1962 as professor and chairman for the Department of Psychology, finishing up with his presidency. Mills then went on to serve as the president of Whittier College from 1979 to 1989, and interim president of Earlham College from 1996 to 1997.
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Herman Brenner White
- Years
- 1948-.. (age 78)
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
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Herman Brenner White is an American physicist who works at Fermilab. He won the 2010 American Physical Society Edward A Bouchet Award and became a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2025.
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Chalmers Hadley
- Occupations
- writerlibrarian
- Biography
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Chalmers Hadley was an American librarian and educator. Hadley served as librarian of Denver Public Library from 1911 to 1924 and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County from 1924 to 1945.
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Martha Doan
- Years
- 1872-1960 (aged 88)
- Occupations
- chemist
- Biography
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Martha Doan was an American chemist whose contributions include research in compounds of thallium, three published work, and tenure as a professor and dean at various institutions in the US. Throughout her lifetime, she received four degrees, a B.S. and master's from Purdue, a B.L. from Earlham College, and a Sc.D. from Cornell. She was a dean of women for two colleges, Earlham College and Iowa Wesleyan College. In addition to her involvement in higher education, she was involved with several national organizations that involved chemistry and science. She was awarded a certificate for Outstanding Service to Science in 1951. There is now a garden dedicated to her in her hometown of Westfield, Indiana, in honor of her interests in science, nature, and horticulture.
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Martin B. Bailey
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Martin Brachall Bailey was an American politician and lawyer.
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Harrison Estell Howe
- Occupations
- chemical engineerchemist
- Biography
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Harrison Estell Howe was an American chemist and chemical engineer. From 1919 to 1921 he was head of the Division of Research Extension of the National Research Council, and was for 21 years the editor of the journal Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the 1942 recipient of the Chemical Industry Medal. He was the author of several popular science books including The New Stone Age, Chemistry in the World's Work, and Chemistry at Home.