← Fame through time1700-1799
The 18th century
Whose working lives fell in the 18th century. Books are measured from 1800 and readers from 2015, so for this period we can say who lived then, not who was talked about then.
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 18th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
George Washington22 decades - 2
Thomas Jefferson22 decades - 3
Benjamin Franklin22 decades - 4
John Adams22 decades - 5
James Madison22 decades - 6
Alexander Hamilton22 decades - 7
James Monroe22 decades - 8
Thomas Paine22 decades - 9
Aaron Burr22 decades - 10
Abigail Adams16 decades - 11
Martha Washington21 decades - 12
Samuel Adams22 decades - 13
Tadeusz Kościuszko0 decades - 14
John Jay22 decades - 15
Patrick Henry22 decades - 16
Benedict Arnold22 decades - 17
Elbridge Gerry22 decades - 18
John Marshall22 decades - 19
John Hancock22 decades - 20
John Jacob Astor I0 decades - 21
Paul Revere21 decades - 22
Phillis Wheatley16 decades - 23
Daniel Boone22 decades - 24
Noah Webster22 decades - 25
Benjamin Rush22 decades
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.