The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Education,
#2251
Hulda Margaret Lyttle
1889 - 1983 (94 years)
Hulda Margaret Lyttle Frazier was an American nurse educator and hospital administrator who spent most of her career in Nashville, Tennessee at Meharry Medical College School of Nursing and affiliated Hubbard Hospital. Lyttle advocated for the modernization and professionalization of African American nurses' training programs, and improved practice standards in hospitals that served African Americans.
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Charles Nisbet
1736 - 1804 (68 years)
Charles Nisbet was a Scottish-American academic and churchman, and the first Principal of Dickinson College. Life Charles Nisbet was born in Haddington, Scotland on January 21, 1736, the son of William Nisbet and Alison Hepburn. His father was a schoolteacher at Long Yester near Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. By 1754, Charles Nisbet had completed studies at both the High School and the University of Edinburgh and had entered Divinity Hall to prepare for the ministry. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh on September 24, 1760. On May 17, 1764, he was ordained to the parish church of Montrose.
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Wilhelm Lübke
1826 - 1893 (67 years)
Wilhelm Lübke was a German art historian, born in Dortmund. He studied at Bonn and Berlin; was a professor of architecture at the Berlin Bauakademie and a professor of art history at the Polytechnic in Zurich , the Polytechnic in Stuttgart , and the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe . Previous to his work in art, he gave instruction in vocal and pianoforte music.
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James Booth
1806 - 1878 (72 years)
The Revd Dr James Booth, was an Anglo-Irish clergyman, notable as a mathematician and educationalist. Life Born at Lavagh, County Leitrim on 26 August 1806, the son of John Booth , he entered Trinity College, Dublin in 1825 and was elected scholar in 1829, graduating B.A. in 1832, M.A. in 1840, and LL.D. in 1842.
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Max D. Raiskin
1919 - 1978 (59 years)
Max D. Raiskin , was a rabbi, Professor of Hebrew Literature, licensed Certified Public Accountant, author of educational textbooks, and the principal and executive director of the East Side Hebrew Institute.
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Maciej Masłowski
1901 - 1976 (75 years)
Maciej Masłowski was a Polish art historian. Biography Masłowski was born in Warsaw. He was a son of painter Stanisław Masłowski and piano teacher Aniela born Ponikowska . After graduating from in Warsaw, he studied at University of Warsaw, first history, and then art history. From 1931 to 1939 he worked in the Department of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education and at the same time as the manager of Mobile Art Exhibition and organizer of the Summer Institutes of Folk Arts at Żabie on Hucul region — 1938 and in Zakopane on Podhale region — 1939. Since 193...
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Lucy Washburn
1848 - 1939 (91 years)
Lucy M. Washburn was a high school education pioneer in the San Francisco Bay Area and one of the founders of the San Jose State Normal School. Early life Lucy Washburn was born on April 23, 1848, in Fredonia, New York, south of Lake Erie. She was the daughter of a regimental surgeon with the Union forces who died during the Civil War. She had a younger brother, Arthur H. Washburn, a mechanical engineer and on the faculty of the San Jose State Normal School with her.
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Timothy Walker
1806 - 1856 (50 years)
Timothy Walker was an American lawyer who founded the Cincinnati Law School and was its first dean. Biography Timothy Walker was born in Wilmington, Massachusetts, US, to Benjamin and Susanna Walker. He graduated from Harvard in 1826. From 1826 to 1829 he taught mathematics at the Round Hill School, and he studied law at Harvard Law School 1829 and 1830.
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Elizabeth Denio
1842 - 1922 (80 years)
Dr. Elizabeth Harriet Denio was an American teacher who was the first woman to teach at the University of Rochester. She retired as Professor Emeritus in 1917. Life Denio was born in Albion, New York, in 1842.
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Allan Marquand
1853 - 1924 (71 years)
Allan Marquand was an art historian at Princeton University and a curator of the Princeton University Art Museum. Early life Marquand was born on December 10, 1853, in New York City. He was a son of Elizabeth Love Marquand and Henry Gurdon Marquand, a prominent philanthropist and art collector who served as the second president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Marquand Family gained prominence in the silver trade, having established Marquand and Co. Marquand's uncle, Frederick Marquand, as well as cousin Virginia Marquand Monroe, founded Southport's Pequot Library Association.
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Gertrud Otto
1895 - 1970 (75 years)
Gertrud Otto was a German art historian who researched sculpture of the 15th and 16th centuries, in particular the late Gothic Memmingen and Ulm schools. Life Gertrud Otto was born in Memmingen, the daughter of Gustav Otto and Berta Otto, née Derpsch, Her father was the publisher of the Memminger Zeitung as well as a print shop owner. After elementary school she attended the secondary school for girls in Memmingen. In 1910 at the age of 15 she left Memmingen and went to Munich, which at the time was the only place where it was possible for girls to take their Abitur. In July 1916 she passed the Abitur at the Ludwigsgymnasium.
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André Chastel
1912 - 1990 (78 years)
André Chastel was a French art historian, author of an important work on the Italian Renaissance. He was a professor at the Collège de France, where he held the chair of art and civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, from 1970 to 1984, he was elected a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in 1975. He is buried at Ivry Cemetery, Ivry-sur-Seine.
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Vivian Wilson Henderson
1923 - 1976 (53 years)
Vivian Wilson Henderson was an American educator and human rights activist, and the eighth president of Clark Atlanta University. Vivian Wilson Henderson became President of Clark College in 1963, at the age of 40, where he would serve as president for 10 consecutive years.
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Henry Nottidge Moseley
1844 - 1891 (47 years)
Henry Nottidge Moseley FRS was a British naturalist who sailed on the global scientific expedition of HMS Challenger in 1872 through 1876. Life Moseley was born in Wandsworth, London, the son of Henry Moseley. He was educated at Harrow School, at Exeter College, Oxford and at the University of London . He married Amabel Gwyn Jeffreys, daughter of the conchologist John Gwyn Jeffreys, in 1881, and they were the parents of the noted British physicist Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley.
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Alfred Woltmann
1841 - 1880 (39 years)
Alfred Woltmann was a German art historian. He was born at Charlottenburg, studied at Berlin and Munich, and was appointed professor of art history successively at the Karlsruhe Polytechnicum and at the universities of Prague and Strasbourg . Conjointly with the author he adapted the fifth volume of Schnaase's Geschichte der bildenden Künste for the second edition , and with Karl Woermann began a Geschichte der Malerei , completed after his death by his collaborator. Besides his principal work, Holbein und seine Zeit , he wrote:Die deutsche Kunst und Die Reformation Die Baugeschichte Ber...
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John B. Creeden
1871 - 1948 (77 years)
John Berchmans Creeden was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit, who served in many senior positions at Jesuit universities in the United States. Born in Massachusetts, he attended Boston College, and studied for the priesthood in Maryland and Austria. He taught at Fordham University and then at Georgetown University, where he became the dean of Georgetown College in 1909, and simultaneously served as the principal of Georgetown Preparatory School.
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Samuel Harrison Greene
1845 - 1920 (75 years)
Samuel Harrison Greene was an American Baptist pastor, church leader, and university official. Early life Samuel Harrison Greene was born in Enosburg, Vermont on December 25, 1845. He was educated in local schools. At 21, he was elected as the Superintendent of Schools in Montgomery, Vermont. In 1873, he graduated from Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, and in 1875 from Hamilton Theological Seminary. He is descended from John Parker.
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Cornelius Gurlitt
1850 - 1938 (88 years)
Cornelius Gustav Gurlitt was a German architect and art historian. Life Gurlitt was born in Nischwitz in Thallwitz, Saxony, the son of the landscape painter Louis Gurlitt and nephew of his namesake, the composer Cornelius Gurlitt. He left the gymnasium of Gotha before graduation and became a carpenter's apprentice. After studying in Stuttgart and Vienna he worked as an architect, then obtained a position at the Arts and Crafts Museum in Dresden.
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Hans Jantzen
1881 - 1967 (86 years)
Hans Jantzen was a German art historian who specialized in Medieval art. Life and work Jantzen first studied law, then history of art, archaeology and philosophy at various universities. For instance, at the University of Berlin he studied under Heinrich Wölfflin and at the University of Halle under Adolph Goldschmidt. In 1908 he completed his PhD dissertation on architecture depicted in Netherlandish paintings. In 1912, after finishing his Habilitationsschrift on color in Dutch painting of the 17th century, he taught art history in Halle.
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Michel Adanson
1727 - 1806 (79 years)
Michel Adanson was an 18th-century French botanist and naturalist who traveled to Senegal to study flora and fauna. He proposed a "natural system" of taxonomy distinct from the binomial system forwarded by Linnaeus.
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Alice Huntington Bushee
1867 - 1956 (89 years)
Alice Huntington Bushee was an American librarian and early pioneer in Hispanic studies. She was a professor at Wellesley College and wrote several books, including Fundamentals of Spanish Grammar. Early years and education Bushee was born on December 4, 1867, in Worcester, Massachusetts. She grew up in Morrisville, Vermont. Bushee graduated from the Peoples Academy in 1886. In 1891, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College. She was the class valedictorian.
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Fritz Grossmann
1902 - 1984 (82 years)
Fritz Grossmann, art historian. Born 26 June 1902 in Stanislau, , now Ivano-Frankivsk in the Ukraine, died 16 November 1984, Croydon, London Biography Fritz Grossmann was the son of a surgeon in the Austro-Hungarian Army. He studied art history at the University of Vienna under Josef Strzygowski. He also attended lectures by Julius von Schlosser, Hans Tietze, Swoboda and Heinrich Gluck. He graduated in 1927 and completed his doctorate in 1932. His thesis was a study of the High Altar in the Benedictine Scottish Monastery in Vienna Die Passions- und Marienlebenfolge im Wiener Schottenstift und ihre Stellungin der Wiener Malerei der Spätgotik.
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Max Loehr
1903 - 1988 (85 years)
Max Loehr was an art historian and professor of Chinese art at Harvard University from 1960 to 1974. As an authority on Chinese art, Loehr published eight books and numerous articles on ancient Chinese painting.
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R. H. Wilenski
1887 - 1975 (88 years)
Reginald Howard Wilenski was an English painter, art historian and critic known for his books The Modern Movement in Art , The Meaning of Modern Sculpture , and his psychological study of John Ruskin .
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Theodore Sizer
1892 - 1967 (75 years)
Theodore Sizer was an American professor of the history of art at Yale University and a director of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. He was named the first Pursuivant of Arms for Yale University in 1963.
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Richard Foerster
1843 - 1922 (79 years)
Richard Foerster was a German classical scholar. He is best known for his extensive research on Greek rhetoric of Late antiquity and for his critical edition of Libanius' works. Biography Though born and raised in Görlitz, Foerster never saw himself a Lusatian and felt the strongest allegiance to Silesia, where he studied since winter term 1861 after a semester at Jena. In Breslau he dropped theology and concentrated on classics in a comprehensive way. Apart from Greek and Roman literature he studied metrics under Rudolf Westphal, archaeology under August Rossbach, Sanskrit under Adolf Friedrich Stenzler.
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William May Wightman
1808 - 1882 (74 years)
Bishop William May Wightman was an American educator and clergyman. He served as the President of Wofford College from 1853 to 1859. He served as the Chancellor of Southern University in Greensboro, Alabama from 1860 to 1866. He became a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1866.
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Elizabeth English Benson
1904 - 1972 (68 years)
Elizabeth English Benson was an American educator for deaf students who taught at Gallaudet College for two decades before being named Dean of Women there. During World War II, she temporarily joined the military so she could help newly deafened soldiers injured in the war. Later she was an occasional interpreter for two U.S. presidents.
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Franz Xaver Kraus
1840 - 1901 (61 years)
Franz Xaver Kraus was a German Catholic priest, and ecclesiastical and art historian. Early life Franz Xaver Kraus was born in Trier in 1840. He completed his studies in the Trier gymnasium, began his theology in 1858-60 in the seminary there, and finished it in 1862-64, having passed in France the time from the autumn of 1860 to the spring of 1862 as tutor in distinguished French families. He was ordained a priest by auxiliary bishop Matthias Eberhard of Trier, 23 March 1864. Even after he became a priest, he continued his studies in theology and philology at the universities of Tübingen, F...
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Grace Foster Herben
1864 - 1938 (74 years)
Grace Ida Foster Herben was an American educator and missionary. The daughter of a minister and the wife of another, her career became intertwined with that of Rev. Stephen J. Herben after their marriage. Beforehand she served as the dean of women at Allegheny College, and afterwards she worked with the Northwestern Branch of the Methodist Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. She was a delegate to the 1910 World Missionary Conference, and was the only woman to serve on the New Jersey Council of National Defense during World War I.
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Zhan Ruoshui
1466 - 1560 (94 years)
Zhan Ruoshui , was a Chinese philosopher, educator and a Confucian scholar. Biography Zhan was born in Zengcheng, Guangdong. He was appointed the president of Nanjing Guozijian in 1524. He was later appointed the Minister of Rites , Minister of Personnel , and then Minister of War at Nanjing of the Ming dynasty.
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John Behan
1881 - 1957 (76 years)
Sir John Clifford Valentine Behan , the first Rhodes Scholar from the state of Victoria, was an Australian educationalist and lawyer, the second warden of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, and "beyond the college life [at Trinity,] he was a sound and far-seeing secretary in Australia of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust for 30 years from 1922 to 1952".
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Hugh P. Baker
1878 - 1950 (72 years)
Hugh Potter Baker was a graduate of the Michigan State College of Agriculture; Yale's School of Forestry ; and the University of Munich . He was the second and fourth Dean of the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, from 1912 to 1920 and 1930 to 1933.
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Jean Balthasar Schnetzler
1823 - 1896 (73 years)
Johann Balthasar Schnetzler was a Swiss naturalist. In 1840/41, he studied at Polytechnic Stuttgart and, for a period of time, taught French classes at the Schaffhausen gymnasium. From 1844 to 1847, he furthered his education at the University of Geneva and, from 1847 to 1867, worked as a science teacher at the progymnasium in Vevey. In 1864, he became an associate professor, and, from 1871, was a full professor of botany at the Academy of Lausanne. From 1879 to 1881, he served as academic rector.
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Heinrich Gustav Hotho
1802 - 1873 (71 years)
Heinrich Gustav Hotho was a German historian of art and Right Hegelian. He is famous for being the compiler and editor of Hegel's posthumous work Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik . Biography During boyhood he was affected for two years with blindness consequent on an attack of measles. But recovering his sight he studied so hard as to take his degree at Berlin in 1826. A year of travel spent in visiting Paris, London and the Low Countries determined his vocation.
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Augusto Weberbauer
1871 - 1948 (77 years)
Augusto Weberbauer was a German naturalist, botanist and university professor. He conducted systematic exploration of Peru in search of new plant species. Weberbauer received his PhD in botany at the University of Breslau , continued his studies in natural sciences at universities in Heidelberg and Berlin. He taught at the University of Breslau. He was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin to develop botanical research in Peru . In 1905, he delivered 5200 species of seagrass which he had collected in Peru. The Peruvian government hired him to develop the Zoo and Botanical Garden in 1908.
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John Berrien Lindsley
1822 - 1897 (75 years)
John Berrien Lindsley was an American Presbyterian minister and educator in Nashville, Tennessee. Born in Princeton, New Jersey, and educated at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, he married an heiress to the Carnton plantation and ministered to slaves and the poor. He was Professor of Medicine at the University of Nashville and co-founder of its Medical Department . He served as the Dean of the Medical Department from 1850 to 1855, and as the Chancellor of the University of Nashville from 1855 to its demise in 1873.
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Bradford Knapp
1870 - 1938 (68 years)
Bradford Knapp was the President of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, now known as Auburn University from 1928 to 1933. Biography Bradford Knapp was born in Vinton, Iowa, on December 24, 1870, to Seaman A. Knapp. In 1899, he attended Iowa State College and graduated with a B.A. in chemistry from Vanderbilt University in 1892. In 1894, he attended Georgetown University and received a B.L. from the University of Michigan in 1896. In 1909, he worked as an assistant for his father in the Bureau of Plant Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture. From 1911 to 1915, he took up his father's position as Chief of Farm Demonstration Work.
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John Green
1867 - 1922 (55 years)
John Alfred Green was a British educationalist, professor of education at Sheffield University.
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Samuel Harris
1814 - 1899 (85 years)
Samuel Harris was the fifth president of Bowdoin College and the first to be an alumnus. After having left Bowdoin in 1871, he went on to teach at Yale Divinity School for 25 years. Career Harris was born in East Machias, Maine, on June 14, 1814, and attended Washington Academy in the same town. After having graduated from Bowdoin in 1833, he attended Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. Harris had been a pastor in Conway, Massachusetts, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from 1841 to 1855 and had taught at the Divinity School in Bangor, Maine, before becoming president of Bowdoin in 1867.
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John Hancock
1808 - 1890 (82 years)
John Hancock was an English naturalist, ornithologist, taxidermist and landscape architect. Working during the golden age of taxidermy when mounted animals became a popular part of Victorian era interior design, Hancock is considered the father of modern taxidermy
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Annie Riley Hale
1859 - 1944 (85 years)
Annie Riley Hale was an American teacher, writer, and social critic. In her lifetime she was known for her criticism of Theodore Roosevelt and her anti-suffrage and anti-vaccine activity. Family Annie Riley Hale was born in Rogersville, Tennessee in 1859. Hale was married to James Richards Hale, a lawyer, who died in 1897. She had three children, including the feminist Ruth Hale who as an adult opposed many of her mother's views. Hale was also a cousin of John K. Shields, a justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court and U.S. Senator.
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Carl Wille Schnitler
1879 - 1926 (47 years)
Carl Wille Schnitler was a Norwegian art historian. He became noted for his national orientated writings on art history, which spanned from the antiquity to his contemporary society. He became best known for his work Slegten fra 1814, which became a primer in Norwegian historiography.
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Peter D. Martin
1923 - 1988 (65 years)
Peter Dean Martin was an American college professor and bookstore owner, known for his founding of the City Lights Bookstore. He was the son of Carlo Tresca and Sabina 'Bina' Flynn, and the nephew of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
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Alexis Rannit
1914 - 1985 (71 years)
Alexis Rannit was an Estonian poet, critic and literature researcher. Biography He was born in Kallaste, in the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire . He spent his childhood in Saint Petersburg. In 1939, he graduated from the University of Tartu. He studied applied arts. He did research on Lithuanian literature and knew personally many Lithuanian authors. From 1938 to 1940 he worked as a correspondent of the Riga newspaper Segodnya.
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Ernst Kühnel
1882 - 1964 (82 years)
Ernst Kühnel was a German art historian who specialized in Islamic art. He was notable for his research on the connection between Islamic and Coptic art, particularly in textiles. Kühnel served as director of the Museum of Islamic Art from 1931 to 1951, and was a professor at the University of Berlin from 1935 to 1954. He was also a consultant for the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., and president of Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft .
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Ludwig von Schorn
1793 - 1842 (49 years)
Johann Karl Ludwig Schorn, after 1838 von Schorn was a German art historian and university Professor. His second wife was the poet, . Biography From 1811 to 1814, he studied evangelical theology at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen. After graduating, he moved to Munich, where he came under the influence of the intellectual circle associated with Friedrich Thiersch; developing an interest in art history and archaeology.
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Hannah Keziah Clapp
1824 - 1908 (84 years)
Hannah Keziah Clapp was a teacher, activist and feminist in Nevada, US. She organized the state's first private school and was co-founder of the state's first kindergarten. She served as principal of the Lansing Female Seminary; taught at Michigan Female College; and was the first instructor and librarian at the University of Nevada, Reno. Clapp co-founded Reno's 20th Century Club, which in 1983 was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings in Washoe County, Nevada. She was born in Albany, New York in 1824, and arrived in Carson City in 1860, where she established the Sierra Seminary.
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John James Tigert III
1856 - 1906 (50 years)
John James Tigert III was an American clergyman, editor and academic. He was a professor of Moral Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, and a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Early life Tigert was born on November 25, 1856, in Louisville, Kentucky.
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Queena Mario
1896 - 1951 (55 years)
Queena Marian Tillotson , known professionally as Queena Mario, was an American soprano opera singer, newspaper columnist, voice teacher, and fiction writer. Early life Queena Marian Tillotson was born in Akron, Ohio, the daughter of James Knox Tillotson and Rose Tillotson. Queena was raised in Plainfield, New Jersey, where she graduated from Plainfield High School. She studied voice with Marcella Sembrich, who advised her name change. She paid for voice lessons by writing newspaper advice columns under the name Florence Bryant, including childrearing advice; "You know a lot when you're 16, y...
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