Believing that the life of a nation is told by the lives of its people, the American National Biography consists of over 19,000 scholarly biographies of significant, influential, or notorious figures from American history.
The latest update to the American National Biography, released Thursday 27th February, adds six new biographies of men and women who worked as educators and academics. New additions include:
Paul Samuelson (1915–2009), the MIT economist who in 1970 became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics (technically the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel). The leading representative of the Keynesian age, his scholarly and popular writing reshaped mid-twentieth-century economic thought.
Fabiola Cabeza De Baca (1894–1991), whose work teaching in rural New Mexico evolved into working for the New Mexico Agriculture Extension Services, where she visited and lived in people’s homes, empowering women by teaching them to combine modern technologies with traditional practices. Her writings preserved New Mexican history and culture.
Octavius Catto (1839–1871), teacher at the Institute of Colored Youth in Philadelphia whose incredible career included serving as major and inspector general for the 5th Brigade, 1st Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard during the Civil War, fighting successfully to integrate Philadelphia’s trolley system in the 1860s, and even co-founding and playing for the Pythian Base Ball Club, the city’s second black baseball team.
Mary Daly (1928–2010), a controversial radical feminist philosopher and theologian who spent thirty-three years teaching at (and clashing with the administration of) Boston College, finally leaving in 1999 when the university refused to let her teach men and women in separate classes.
Robert Leslie Wharton (1871–1960), a Presbyterian missionary who established religious schools in Cuba, including La Progrresiva in Cardenas. Ultimately, La Progresiva served over 2000 students with a Christian workers training school, a vocational school, and a junior college.
Mary Elizabeth Carnegie (1916–2008), African American nurse who established Virginia’s first baccalaureate nursing program at Hampton Institute, and, beginning in 1945, transformed the nursing curriculum at the Florida A & M school of nursing. She became the first African American elected to the Florida State Nurses Association Board of Directors, before joining the editorial staff at the American Journal of Nursing, where, over the next 35 years, she would advance up the ranks to Senior Editor.
Jo Payne, Head of Biographical and General Reference, Oxford University Press