Who's Who, Who's That?

As promised, I am about to list some of the names (perhaps about half of them) in the American Almanac's day calendar for 1879. I am listing all the names I could not identify for sure; some I had some vague notions about, but I held myself to a fairly rigorous standard.

Before giving the list, I only would point out that in order to fill up 356 days there is likely to have been a little stretching going on. The editors needed one name or event per day, no more and no less. So we can't say for sure that this list represents a complete idea of famous persons or events of the time. But it's not entirely random either, as becomes clear when you ask yourself how you would put together such a feature item today. You would not choose an obscure event or person over a better known one, would you? I sure wouldn't.

So, the list is good enough to get a broad picture of what fame meant to Americans, or at least to Americans in Boston, during the Hayes Administration. I have also listed the year date of death or birth. If I list both, that means the name appeared twice in the calander. I did not, of course, list "Rachel" -- see earlier post on her which led to this post.

David Garrick, b.1716; d. 1779
William H. Prescott, d. 1859
John Rogers, d. 1555
Reverdy Johnson, d. 1876
Dr. E. K. Kane, d. 1857
Henry R. Schoolcraft, b. 1793
William Ellery Channing, b. 1780
Donizetti, d. 1848
Thomas Wentworth Strafford, b. 1593
John L Motley, b. 1819
Sir John Franklin, b. 1786
Thomas Hood, d. 1845
Daniel O'Connell, d. 1847
Marie Edgeworth, d. 1849
Edward Livingstone, d. 1835
Louis Agassiz, b. 1807
Sarah Siddons, b. 1755
Houdon, d. 1828
Paul Delaroche, b. 1797
John Sterling, b. 1806
Benjamin Silliman, b. 1779
J.V. Moreau, b. 1763
C. Malte-Brun, b. 1775
Cuvier, b. 1769
Buffon, b. 1707
Lord Brougham, b. 1779
Madame Malibran, d. 1836
Louis Rene Rohan, b. 1734
Thomas Clarkson, d. 1849
Canova, d. 1822
Theophile Gautier, d. 1872
Rhinehart, d. 1874
John Leech, d. 1864
John B. McCulloch, d. 1864
Johann L. Uhland, d. 1862
Pierre Bayle, b. 1647
Madame de Maintenon, b. 1635
Emmerich Vattel, d. 1767
Thomas Gray, b. 1716
Juan Prim, d. 1870
Jules Simon, b. 1814

If you take the time to find out who these people were, you'll discover that fame in the middle of 19th century America leaned heavily toward Brits and French, besides Americans. Heavily toward the arts and sciences, with a good smattering of religious types. The political, of course, too. There are some women, more than I thought there would be.

I confess to having been embarrassed to not know some of these names, because finding out who they were instantly reminded me that I had heard of them before. Did you take the test? How many did you know? I suppose that some of the ones I did know and thus did not list above, many people would not know. But I was too lazy to list them all......there are nearly a hundred. Example: Max Muller. I did not list Max Muller, because I have a special reason for knowing who he was. Do you? How about John Henry Newman? Helps to be a Catholic on that one.

Seriously, it is interesting to reflect on what makes for fame in any given era, and what that tells us about the era. And what makes fame so fleeting, and what that tells us about human nature and society. Alas, as to the latter, we would do worse than to remember what S.J. Perelman once wrote about immortality -- that it is left to the whim of the yet unborn. Lucky, then, are most of us, who don't have to worry about the matter at all.