← 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
Aaron Burr22 decades - 9
Abigail Adams16 decades - 10
Martha Washington21 decades - 11
Samuel Adams22 decades - 12
John Jay22 decades - 13
Patrick Henry22 decades - 14
Elbridge Gerry22 decades - 15
John Marshall22 decades - 16
John Hancock22 decades - 17
George Mason22 decades - 18
Henry Knox22 decades - 19
Roger Sherman22 decades - 20
Ethan Allen22 decades - 21Martha Jefferson11 decades
- 22
Robert Morris22 decades - 23
Edmund Randolph22 decades - 24
Charles Carroll of Carrollton20 decades - 25
Richard Henry Lee22 decades - 26
Albert Gallatin7 decades - 27
Horatio Gates22 decades - 28
Henry Lee III0 decades - 29
Gouverneur Morris22 decades - 30
John Rutledge22 decades - 31
Joseph Brant19 decades - 32
James Wilson22 decades - 33
Robert R. Livingston22 decades - 34
Anthony Wayne22 decades - 35
Rufus King22 decades - 36
Oliver Ellsworth22 decades - 37
Timothy Pickering22 decades - 38
Philip Schuyler21 decades - 39
John Dickinsonnot measured- - 40
Benjamin Harrison V0 decades - 41
Daniel Morgan20 decades - 42
Edward Rutledge22 decades - 43
Thomas Mifflin22 decades - 44
Samuel Chase22 decades - 45
Arthur St. Clair22 decades - 46
Thomas McKean20 decades - 47
John Sullivan22 decades - 48
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney22 decades - 49
Caesar Rodney21 decades - 50
Frederick Muhlenberg0 decades - 51
William Paterson22 decades - 52
Edward Livingston22 decades - 53
Jonathan Dayton19 decades - 54
Oliver Wolcott22 decades - 55
Francis Hopkinson22 decades - 56
Button Gwinnett14 decades - 57
Samuel Huntington22 decades - 58
William Livingston22 decades - 59
Henry Dearborn22 decades - 60
James McHenry19 decades - 61
William Blount22 decades - 62
Abraham Baldwin21 decades - 63
John Langdon22 decades - 64
Francis Marion20 decades
- 65
Benjamin Lincoln21 decades - 66
Robert Treat Paine22 decades - 67
George Read22 decades
- 68
Christopher Gadsden17 decades - 69
William Ellery22 decades - 70
Levi Lincoln Sr.not measured- - 71
Isaac Shelby21 decades - 72
Richard Stockton21 decades - 73
Thomas Sumter16 decades - 74
William Floyd21 decades - 75
Samuel Dexter17 decades - 76
John Armstrong Jr.0 decades - 77
Thomas Pinckney22 decades - 78
George Walton22 decades - 79
John Breckinridge19 decades - 80
John Morton22 decades - 81
George Clymer18 decades - 82
Thomas Nelson22 decades - 83
Francis Lewis20 decades - 84
William Samuel Johnson17 decades - 85
William Whipple17 decades - 86
James Bowdoin22 decades - 87
Samuel Osgood18 decades - 88
Pierce Butler22 decades - 89
Carter Braxton18 decades - 90
Lyman Hall17 decades - 91
William Paca21 decades - 92
John Adair22 decades - 93
James Wilkinsonnot measured- - 94
Charles Lynch17 decades - 95
Fisher Ames22 decades - 96
Artemas Ward17 decades - 97
John Sevier21 decades - 98
John Hanson22 decades - 99
Richard Bassett17 decades - 100
Thomas Fitzsimons8 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.