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,
#2601
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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Lucy Langdon Wilson
1864 - 1937 (73 years)
Lucy Langdon Wilson was an American educator and ethnographer who became widely known for her models of progressive education and for using laboratory methods to teach natural science to young school children. She was also a published ethnographer.
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William Allen
1784 - 1868 (84 years)
William Allen was an American biographer, scholar and academic. He served as president of both Dartmouth University and Bowdoin College. Biography William Allen was born at Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1784. He graduated from Harvard College in Cambridge in 1802 and after a few years of work became assistant librarian at Harvard. He became Pastor of Pittsfield 1810; President of Dartmouth University, 1817; and President of Bowdoin College 1820-1839. He was largely responsible for establishing the Medical School of Maine at Bowdoin College in 1820. He resigned in 1839, and died at Northampto...
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Karl Lehmann
1894 - 1960 (66 years)
Karl Leo Heinrich Lehmann was a German-born American art historian, archaeologist, and professor. He was known for archaeology work in Samothrace, Greece and the related publications. He was a professor at New York University Institute of Fine Arts from 1935, until his death in 1960. Lehmann was the founder and director of the Archaeological Research Fund at New York University
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Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl
1782 - 1849 (67 years)
Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl was a German Germanist, pedagogue, musicologist and conductor. Life Griepenkerl was born in Peine the son of a preacher, he first attended the school in Peine and changed in 1796 to the . From 1805 to 1808 he studied theology at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, where he also studied philosophy and pedagogy with Johann Friedrich Herbart and philology with Christian Gottlob Heyne. In addition he studied music theory, piano and organ with Johann Sebastian Bach's devotee Johann Nikolaus Forkel . In 1808, on Herbart's advice, he went to Hofwil in Switzerland, wh...
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John C. Young
1803 - 1857 (54 years)
John Clarke Young was an American educator and pastor who was the fourth president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. A graduate of Dickinson College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he entered the ministry in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1828. He accepted the presidency of Centre College in 1830, holding the position until his death in 1857, making him the longest-serving president in the college's history. He is regarded as one of the college's best presidents, as he increased the endowment of the college more than five-fold during his term and increased the graduating class size from t...
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Mikhail Alpatov
1902 - 1986 (84 years)
Mikhail Vladimirovich Alpatov was a Soviet historian and art theorist, notable for his contribution to the history of the culture of ancient Rus. Biography Alpatov graduated from Moscow State University, where he studied the history of arts from 1919 and 1921. Subsequently, he worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, and, from 1923 to 1930, in the Institute of Archeology and Art History of the Academy of Sciences. In 1943 he became a professor at the Surikov State Institute of Arts, also in Moscow. In 1954, he became a member of the USSR Academy of Art. He died in 1986.
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Andreas Stübel
1653 - 1725 (72 years)
Andreas Stübel, also: Stiefel was a German Lutheran theologian, pedagogue and philosopher. Career Born in Dresden the son of an innkeeper, Stübel attended the from 1668. After the Abitur, he studied philosophy, philology and theology at the University of Leipzig, graduating in 1674 a Baccalaureus and in 1676 a Magister of philosophy. He then worked as a private teacher. From 1682 he was Tertius at the , promoted to Konrektor in 1684. In 1687 he was a Baccalaureus of theology, appointed a private lecturer at the Leipzig University. In 1697 he lost the position due to theological disputes. He ...
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Olive Cowell
1887 - 1984 (97 years)
Olive Thompson Cowell was a patron of the arts and music, and a professor of International Relations. Career Cowell graduated from Barnard College in 1910. She taught in high schools for several years before becoming professor at San Francisco State University. She went on to found the International Relations department as part of the Government program at San Francisco State University in 1927, the first International Relations department in the USA. She taught at the university until 1956.
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Rose Zeller
1891 - 1975 (84 years)
Rose Margaret Zeller was a New Zealand artist. Biography Zeller was born at the family home at 325 Cashel Street, Christchurch, New Zealand, where she lived until her death. Her parents were Hubert Andrew Zeller and Sarah Ann Zeller, who had arrived in New Zealand from London in 1890.
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James Mason Hoppin
1820 - 1906 (86 years)
James Mason Hoppin was an American educator and writer. Biography James Mason Hoppin was born at Providence, Rhode Island on January 17, 1820. He graduated from Yale College in 1840 from Harvard Law School in 1842, and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1845. He studied for some time abroad; and was pastor of a Congregational church at Salem, Massachusetts from 1850 to 1859. From 1861 to 1879 he was professor of homiletics at Yale, where he was also professor of art history from 1879 to 1899, when he became professor emeritus. He was a member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Science...
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George William Cook
1855 - 1931 (76 years)
George William Cook was an American educator who served as instructor, dean, alumni secretary and manager at Howard University. Born a slave in Winchester, Virginia, he was one of 8 children of Eliza and Peyton Cook. He graduated from the university, as a student of both the liberal arts college, and the law school. His career spanned fifty-eight of the first sixty-six of Howard University's history.
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Antoine Risso
1777 - 1845 (68 years)
Giuseppe Antonio Risso , called Antoine Risso, was a Niçard and naturalist. Risso was born in the city of Nice in the Duchy of Savoy, and studied under Giovanni Battista Balbis. He published , and . Risso's dolphin was named after him. He is denoted by the author abbreviation Risso when citing a botanical name; the same abbreviation is used for zoological names.
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Cady Staley
1840 - 1928 (88 years)
Cady Staley was the first president of Case School of Applied Science, now Case Western Reserve University. Biography Staley was born in Florida, Montgomery County, New York on December 12, 1840. He earned three degrees from Union College of Schenectady, New York, to include his B.A. , C.E. , and Ph.D. . He worked at Union College as an instructor in Civil Engineering from 1867-1868, a professor of that subject from 1868-1876, and the Dean of the Faculty from 1876-1886.
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Bhaskar Vishwananth Ghokale
1903 - 1962 (59 years)
Bhaskar Vishwanath Gokhale , also known as Vaidya Bhaskar Vishwanath Gokhale, and popularly called Mama Gokhaleji, was an Indian Ayurveda practitioner, Ayurvedic teacher, freedom fighter, and philosopher.
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Edward Bradby
1827 - 1893 (66 years)
Rev. Edward Henry Bradby was a classicist. Academic timeline Educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford Canon of St. AlbansPrincipal at Hatfield College, Durham University House Master at Harrow Headmaster of Haileybury College Bradby retired somewhat early from Haileybury to do mission work in the east end of London, where he remained until his death.
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Miriam E. Carey
1858 - 1937 (79 years)
Miriam Eliza Carey was an American librarian who helped establish the first libraries in prisons and hospitals in Iowa and Minnesota. Education and career Carey studied at Rockford Seminary , Oberlin College, Ohio and the library school of the University of Illinois, .
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Hermann Goetz
1898 - 1976 (78 years)
Hermann Goetz was a German art historian and museum director, known for his scholarly contributions in the field of Indian art history. He was the Director of the Baroda Museum & Picture Gallery, and the Director of history of art at the Heidelberg University's Südasien-Institut .
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Eduard Friedrich Poeppig
1798 - 1868 (70 years)
Eduard Friedrich Poeppig was a German botanist, zoologist and explorer. Biography Poeppig was born in Plauen, Saxony. He studied medicine and natural history at the University of Leipzig, graduating with a medical degree. On graduation, the rector of the university gave him a botanical mission to North and South America. He was helped out financially by a small group of friends and scientists in Leipzig, that included botanist Christian Friedrich Schwägrichen, who in exchange, received sets of specimens. He subsequently worked as a naturalist in Cuba and Pennsylvania . In 1826 he departed fo...
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David Scott
1806 - 1849 (43 years)
David Scott was a Scottish historical painter. Life Scott was the brother of William Bell Scott. He was born at Parliament Steps, off Parliament Square in Edinburgh, where he attended the Royal High School, and studied art under his father, Robert Scott, the engraver.
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Michael Apostolius
1420 - 1478 (58 years)
Michael Apostolius or Apostolius Paroemiographus, i.e. Apostolius the proverb-writer, was a Greek teacher, writer and copyist who lived in the fifteenth century. Life Apostolius, a student of John Argyropoulos, taught for a short time at the Monastery of St. John of Petra in Constantinople. Taken prisoner by the Turks during the fall of Constantinople in 1453, he was later released and fled to Crete, then a Venetian colony. There he earned a scanty living by teaching and by copying manuscripts for Italian humanists, including his patron, Cardinal Bessarion. He often complained about his pover...
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Shalva Amiranashvili
1899 - 1975 (76 years)
Shalva Amiranashvili was a Georgian art historian, one of the first to have engaged in systematic scholarly treatment of the art of Georgia. His name was posthumously given, in 1991, to the Art Museum of Georgia, which he had directed for 36 years, from 1939 to 1975.
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Jeff Chandler
1918 - 1961 (43 years)
Jeff Chandler was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Cochise in Broken Arrow , for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was one of Universal Pictures' more popular male stars of the 1950s. His other credits include Sword in the Desert , Deported , Female on the Beach , and Away All Boats . In addition to his acting in film, he was known for his role in the radio program Our Miss Brooks, as Phillip Boynton, her fellow teacher and clueless object of affection, and for his musical recordings.
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Antal Both
1875 - 1963 (88 years)
Antal Both was a Hungarian teacher, pedagogue and Roman Catholic theologian. Life Antal Both was a descendant of the Botfalvi Both family of noble origins, having its ancestral residence in Ung County. He was born on September 2, 1875, in Nagyberezna , as the son of the Roman Catholic Ferdinand Both. At that time, the settlement had mixed national and religious population, with a majority of Rusine and German inhabitants. Ferdinand, the father of Antal Both, set up a pharmacy in this town. In 1885, when Antal was 10 years old, his parents enrolled him in the Piarist grammar school in Nagykároly .
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Charles Pomeroy Otis
1840 - 1888 (48 years)
Charles Pomeroy Otis was an American educator and author. Otis, son of the Rev. Israel T. Otis and Olive M. Otis, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, where his father was then pastor, on April 8, 1840. In 1844 his father removed to Rye, N. H., from which place he entered Yale College. After graduation in 1861 he was for nearly a year principal of an academy in Fairfield, Connecticut, and then became a teacher in General Russell's school in New Haven, where he remained until he entered on a tutorship in the college, in January, 1865. July, 1869, he resigned this office, and he spent the next three years in Europe, chiefly in study in Paris and Berlin.
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Ora Brown Stokes Perry
1882 - 1957 (75 years)
Ora Brown Stokes Perry was an American educator, probation officer, temperance worker, suffragist, and clubwoman based in Richmond, Virginia. Early life Ora E. Brown was born in Chesterfield County, Virginia, the daughter of Rev. James E. Brown and Olivia Knight Quarles Brown. She trained as a teacher at Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, graduating in 1900. She also studied at Hartshorn Memorial College and the University of Chicago. In 1917, she was refused admission to the newly organized Richmond School of Social Economy because of her race.
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Francis Wharton
1820 - 1889 (69 years)
Francis Wharton was an American legal writer and educationalist. Life Wharton graduated from Yale in 1839, was admitted to the bar in 1843, became prominent in Pennsylvania politics as a Democrat, and served as assistant attorney-general in 1845. In Philadelphia, he edited the North American and United States Gazette. He was professor of English, History, and Literature at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, from 1856 to 1863.
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Myra Carroll Winkler
1880 - 1963 (83 years)
Myra Carroll Winkler was an American educator and was the first woman to hold elected office in El Paso County. Biography Winkler was born in Corsicana, Texas and her father, Clinton M. Winkler, was one of the first judges on the Texas State Court of Appeals. Winkler's mother, A.V. Winkler, was active in collecting Confederate artifacts. Winkler attended and graduated from the Sam Houston Teacher's College, and moved to El Paso, Texas in 1902. In El Paso, Winkler taught at several El Paso public schools, including El Paso High School.
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Clemens V. Rault
1896 - 1989 (93 years)
Clemens Vincent Rault was a rear admiral in the United States Navy and dean of the Georgetown University School of Dentistry. He served as the Chief of the United States Navy Dental Corps twice, from 1932 to 1933 and again from 1948 to 1950.
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Edgar Ewing Brandon
1865 - 1957 (92 years)
Edgar Ewing Brandon was a professor of French and college administrator who served twice as acting president of Miami University and was an expert on the Marquis de Lafayette. Born in York Springs, Pennsylvania, Brandon earned an A.B. degree from the University of Michigan, a A.M. degree from the University of Missouri in 1897 and a Docteur d'Universite degree from the University of Paris in 1904.
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Marika Cifor
Marika Cifor is an American archivist and feminist academic known for her work in archival science, library science, and digital studies. Her research focuses on community archives, HIV/AIDS, affect theory, and approaches to archival practice rooted in social justice. She is an assistant professor at the University of Washington Information School. She also holds an adjunct faculty appointment in UW's Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies department.
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Carl Georg Brunius
1793 - 1869 (76 years)
Carl Georg Brunius was a classical scholar, art historian, archaeologist and architect. He served as a professor and rector at Lund University. During 1833-59, he led the restoration work of Lund Cathedral.
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John Henderson Jr.
1870 - 1923 (53 years)
John Brooks Henderson Jr. was an American diplomat, educator, and malacologist. Early life Henderson was born in Pike County, Missouri on February 18, 1870. He was the son of United States Senator John Brooks Henderson and social activist Mary Foote Henderson, who was known as "The Empress of Sixteenth Street." His father was known as the Senator who introduced the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution that abolished slavery and one of seven Republicans who voted against the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in May 1868.
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Émile Mâle
1862 - 1954 (92 years)
Émile Mâle was a French art historian, one of the first to study medieval, mostly sacral French art and the influence of Eastern European iconography thereon. He was a member of the Académie française, and a director of the Académie de France à Rome.
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D. H. Turner
1931 - 1985 (54 years)
Derek Howard Turner was an English museum curator and art historian who specialised in liturgical studies and illuminated manuscripts. He worked at the British Museum and the British Library from 1956 until his death, focusing on exhibitions, scholarship, and loans.
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Christoph Wilhelm Jacob Gatterer
1759 - 1838 (79 years)
Christoph Wilhelm Jacob Gatterer was a German cameralist and natural historian born in Göttingen. He was the son of historian Johann Christoph Gatterer . He studied natural sciences and mineralogy in Göttingen, earning his degree in 1778. In 1787 he became a professor of agriculture, forestry and technology at the University of Heidelberg. He later became a professor of diplomatics, and in 1803 was appointed director of the Schloßgarten in Heidelberg.
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