← 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
Tadeusz Kościuszko0 decades - 2
Benjamin Banneker7 decades
- 3
Benjamin Thompson22 decades - 4
William Bartram22 decades - 5
David Rittenhouse22 decades - 6
John Bartram22 decades - 7
David Bushnell8 decades - 8
Oliver Evans22 decades - 9
Jane Colden0 decades - 10
John Abbot16 decades - 11
John Fitchnot measured- - 12Mary Dixon Kies0 decades
- 13
Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg0 decades - 14
John Armstrongnot measured- - 15Peter Pondnot measured-
- 16
Catherine Littlefield Greenenot measured- - 17Thomas Walter21 decades
- 18
Simeon De Wittnot measured- - 19Thomas Godfreynot measured-
- 20Humphry Marshall0 decades
- 21
Joshua Humphreysnot measured- - 22
Andrew Ellicottnot measured- - 23Bernard Romansnot measured-
- 24
Sybilla Masters0 decades - 25Henry Ellisnot measured-
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.