215,950 profiles ranked

← Fame through time1800-1899

The 19th century

Whose names filled the books of the 19th century - anyone at all, however long dead - counted as mentions per million words printed, so a period that simply published more does not inflate anyone.

Talked about then

Whose names appeared most in Hebrew books during the 19th century, whenever they lived.

Lived then

The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 19th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.

  1. 1Abraham Lincoln1809-1865 · United States · Politicians22 decades
  2. 2Theodore Roosevelt1858-1919 · United States · Politicians16 decades
  3. 3Edgar Allan Poe1809-1849 · United States · Writers17 decades
  4. 4Mark Twain1835-1910 · United States · Writers16 decades
  5. 5Thomas Edison1847-1931 · United States · Scientists13 decades
  6. 6Woodrow Wilson1856-1924 · United States · Politicians14 decades
  7. 7Ulysses S. Grant1822-1885 · United States · Politicians16 decades
  8. 8James A. Garfield1831-1881 · United States · Politicians16 decades
  9. 9Andrew Jackson1767-1845 · United States · Politicians22 decades
  10. 10Henry Ford1863-1947 · United States · Founders16 decades
  11. 11William McKinley1843-1901 · United States · Politicians16 decades
  12. 12Grover Cleveland1837-1908 · United States · Politicians14 decades
  13. 13John Quincy Adams1767-1848 · United States · Politicians22 decades
  14. 14Chester A. Arthur1829-1886 · United States · Politicians15 decades
  15. 15William Howard Taft1857-1930 · United States · Politicians12 decades
  16. 16William Henry Harrison1773-1841 · United States · Politicians22 decades
  17. 17Andrew Johnson1808-1875 · United States · Politicians22 decades
  18. 18James Buchanan1791-1868 · United States · Politicians22 decades
  19. 19Alexander Graham Bell1847-1922 · United States · Scientists15 decades
  20. 20Martin Van Buren1782-1862 · United States · Politicians21 decades
  21. 21John Tyler1790-1862 · United States · Politicians22 decades
  22. 22Zachary Taylor1784-1850 · United States · Politicians18 decades
  23. 23James K. Polk1795-1849 · United States · Politicians20 decades
  24. 24Rutherford B. Hayes1822-1893 · United States · Politicians16 decades
  25. 25Emily Dickinson1830-1886 · United States · Writers13 decades
  26. 26Benjamin Harrison1833-1901 · United States · Politicians19 decades
  27. 27Henry David Thoreau1817-1862 · United States · Writers13 decades
  28. 28Millard Fillmore1800-1874 · United States · Politicians19 decades
  29. 29Franklin Pierce1804-1869 · United States · Politicians20 decades
  30. 30Walt Whitman1819-1892 · United States · Writers17 decades
  31. 31Ralph Waldo Emerson1803-1882 · United States · Academics19 decades
  32. 32Joseph Smith1805-1844 · United States · Politicians22 decades
  33. 33John D. Rockefeller1839-1937 · United States · Founders14 decades
  34. 34Harriet Tubman1821-1913 · United States · Writers9 decades
  35. 35Andrew Carnegie1835-1919 · United States · Founders14 decades
  36. 36Robert E. Lee1807-1870 · United States16 decades
  37. 37Herman Melville1819-1891 · United States · Writers18 decades
  38. 38Frederick Douglass1818-1895 · United States · Writers18 decades
  39. 39P. T. Barnum1810-1891 · United States · Politicians17 decades
  40. 40Sitting Bull1831-1890 · United States15 decades
  41. 41Jefferson Davis1808-1889 · United States · Politicians20 decades
  42. 42Louisa May Alcott1832-1888 · United States · Writers14 decades
  43. 43Nathaniel Hawthorne1804-1864 · United States · Writers19 decades
  44. 44J. P. Morgan1837-1913 · United States · Founders16 decades
  45. 45Henry James1843-1916 · United States · Writers18 decades
  46. 46William James1842-1910 · United States · Academicsnot measured-
  47. 47John Dewey1859-1952 · United States · Academics14 decades
  48. 48Susan B. Anthony1820-1906 · United States · Activists16 decades
  49. 49Harriet Beecher Stowe1811-1896 · United States · Writers17 decades
  50. 50Billy the Kid1859-1881 · United States12 decades
  51. 51Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807-1882 · United States · Writers18 decades
  52. 52Geronimo1829-1909 · United States · Actorsnot measured-
  53. 53Washington Irving1783-1859 · United States · Writers22 decades
  54. 54John Brown1800-1859 · United States · Foundersnot measured-
  55. 55Edith Wharton1862-1937 · United States · Writers13 decades
  56. 56L. Frank Baum1856-1919 · United States · Writers8 decades
  57. 57William Tecumseh Sherman1820-1891 · United States · Writers14 decades
  58. 58Helena Blavatsky1831-1891 · United States · Writers2 decades
  59. 59John C. Calhoun1782-1850 · United States · Politicians22 decades
  60. 60John Wilkes Booth1838-1865 · United States · Actors16 decades
  61. 61Sojourner Truth1797-1883 · United States · Writers13 decades
  62. 62George Washington Carver1864-1943 · United States · Scientists9 decades
  63. 63O. Henry1862-1910 · United States · Writers14 decades
  64. 64Ambrose Bierce1842-1914 · United States · Journalists13 decades
  65. 65Brigham Young1801-1877 · United States · Politicians19 decades
  66. 66George Armstrong Custer1839-1876 · United States · Historical Figures7 decades
  67. 67Liliʻuokalani1838-1917 · United States · Historical Figuresnot measured-
  68. 68Nellie Bly1864-1922 · United States · Journalists13 decades
  69. 69Booker T. Washington1856-1915 · United States · Educators13 decades
  70. 70Crazy Horse1849-1877 · United States · Politicians15 decades
  71. 71Samuel Morse1791-1872 · United States · Scientists0 decades
  72. 72William Randolph Hearst1863-1951 · United States · Politicians12 decades
  73. 73Jesse James1847-1882 · United States14 decades
  74. 74Stonewall Jackson1824-1863 · United States16 decades
  75. 75John Singer Sargent1856-1925 · United States · Artists11 decades
  76. 76James Fenimore Cooper1789-1851 · United States · Writers18 decades
  77. 77Mary Todd Lincoln1818-1882 · United States10 decades
  78. 78John J. Pershing1860-1948 · United States · Lawyers12 decades
  79. 79Sam Houston1793-1863 · United States · Politicians20 decades
  80. 80Jane Addams1860-1935 · United States · Activists14 decades
  81. 81John Muir1838-1914 · United States · Scientists19 decades
  82. 82Mary Cassatt1844-1926 · United States · Artists12 decades
  83. 83Davy Crockett1786-1836 · United States · Politicians19 decades
  84. 84Buffalo Bill1846-1917 · United States · Writers15 decades
  85. 85Joseph Pulitzer1847-1911 · United States · Politicians14 decades
  86. 86Cornelius Vanderbilt1794-1877 · United States · Founders18 decades
  87. 87Levi Strauss1829-1902 · United States · Founders11 decades
  88. 88William H. Seward1801-1872 · United States · Politicians19 decades
  89. 89Sacagawea1788-1812 · United States · Historical Figures9 decades
  90. 90Kamehameha I1800-1819 · United States · Historical Figures13 decades
  91. 91Elizabeth Cady Stanton1815-1902 · United States · Writers15 decades
  92. 92William Jennings Bryan1860-1925 · United States · Politicians13 decades
  93. 93Ellen G. White1827-1915 · United States · Writers6 decades
  94. 94John James Audubon1785-1851 · United States · Artists19 decades
  95. 95Tecumseh1768-1813 · United Statesnot measured-
  96. 96Hannibal Hamlin1809-1891 · United States · Politicians18 decades
  97. 97Frances Hodgson Burnett1849-1924 · United States · Writers15 decades
  98. 98Wyatt Earp1848-1929 · United States · Politicians10 decades
  99. 99Charles Sanders Peirce1839-1914 · United States · Academics9 decades
  100. 100Henry George1839-1897 · United States · Academics19 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.