1800–1899
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 Chinese books during the 19th century — whenever they lived.
In books written inEnglish18,114German3,599French3,347Italian1,787Spanish1,162Russian325Hebrew105Chinese9
#PersonIn print, 1800–2019Per million words
- 1
Zhu Xi1130–1200 · 12th century · 🇨🇳 China · Writers870 - 2
Li Hongzhang1823–1901 · 19th century · 🇨🇳 China · Politicians149 - 3
Zhang Zhidong1837–1909 · 19th century · Politicians86 - 4
Zuo Zongtang1812–1885 · 19th century · 🇨🇳 China · Politicians43 - 5
Ban Gu32–92 · 1st century · Writers40 - 6
Ge Hong284–364 · 4th century · Academics40 - 7CSChen Shou233–297 · 3rd century · Writers14
- 8
Mao Zedong1893–1976 · 20th century · 🇨🇳 China · Politicians12 - 9
Lu Xun1881–1936 · 20th century · 🇨🇳 China · Writers11
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 19th century, ranked where Wikipedia coverage and readership agree.
#PersonIn print, 1800–2019Echoed
- 1
John Philip Sousa1854–1932 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musicians13 decades - 2
Stephen Foster1826–1864 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musicians18 decades - 3
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Solomon Northup1808–1864 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musicians3 decades - 4
Fanny Crosby1820–1915 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musicians4 decades - 5
Edward MacDowell1860–1908 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musicians11 decades - 6
Louis Moreau Gottschalk1829–1869 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 7
Emma Smith1804–1879 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 8
Victor Herbert1859–1924 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 9
Josiah Warren1798–1874 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musicians5 decades - 10
David Edward Hughes1831–1900 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musicians0 decades - 11
James Pierpont1822–1893 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 12
Phoebe Hearst1842–1919 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 13
Francis James Child1825–1896 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 14
Lowell Mason1792–1872 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 15
Philip Bliss1838–1876 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 16
Ira D. Sankey1840–1908 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 17
Ida Craddock1857–1902 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 18
Ernestine Schumann-Heink1861–1936 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 19
Moriz Rosenthal1862–1946 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 20
George Whitefield Chadwick1854–1931 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 21MJMildred J. Hill1859–1916 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured—
- 22
Oscar Hammerstein I1848–1919 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 23
Walter Damrosch1862–1950 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 24
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Theodore Thomas1835–1905 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musicians0 decades - 25
John Knowles Paine1839–1906 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 26
Horatio Parker1863–1919 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 27
George W. Johnson1846–1914 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 28
George Frederick Root1820–1895 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 29
Arthur Foote1853–1937 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 30
William Sowden Sims1858–1936 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 31
Charlotte Garrigue1850–1923 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 32
Henry Clay Work1832–1884 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 33
Dan Emmett1815–1904 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 34
Eliza Roxcy Snow1804–1887 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 35
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge1864–1953 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 36
Paul Dresser1858–1906 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 37
Isaac Rice1850–1915 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 38
Lillian Nordica1857–1914 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 39
Charles Martin Loeffler1861–1935 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 40
Charles Albert Tindley1851–1933 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 41
Lydia Moss Bradley1816–1908 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 42
Ethelbert Nevin1862–1901 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 43
Frank Damrosch1859–1937 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 44
Sibyl Sanderson1864–1903 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 45
William Batchelder Bradbury1816–1868 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 46
Jane Stanford1828–1905 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 47
William Alcott1798–1859 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 48
Elizabeth Smith Miller1822–1911 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 49
Jeannette Thurber1850–1946 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 50
Cornelia Connelly1809–1879 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 51
Jules Bache1861–1944 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 52
Clara Brown1803–1885 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 53
William Dunlap1766–1839 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 54
Elise Hall1853–1924 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 55
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Charles Crozat Converse1832–1918 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 56
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Charles H. Gabriel1856–1932 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 57
Septimus Winner1827–1902 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 58
William Mason1829–1908 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 59
Chauncey Olcott1858–1932 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 60
Isaac Lea1792–1886 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 61
Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler1863–1927 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 62
Samuel A. Ward1847–1903 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 63
Dudley Buck1839–1909 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 64FWF. W. Meacham1856–1909 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured—
- 65
Carrie Jacobs-Bond1862–1946 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 66
Frank Van der Stucken1858–1929 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 67
William Henry Fry1813–1864 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 68
Rafael Joseffy1853–1915 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 69
George Frederick Bristow1825–1898 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 70
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Blind Tom Wiggins1849–1908 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 71
William Howard Doane1832–1915 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 72
Morris Ketchum Jesup1830–1908 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 73
Amy Fay1844–1928 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 74
Matthew Vassar1792–1868 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 75
Henry Marion Howe1848–1922 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 76
Lydia Yeamans Titus1857–1929 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 77
Anthony Philip Heinrich1781–1861 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 78
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George Bent1843–1918 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 79
Josephine Shaw Lowell1843–1905 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 80
Carl Busch1862–1943 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 81
Tony Pastor1837–1908 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 82
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Edward Harrigan1844–1911 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 83
Benjamin Carr1768–1831 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 84
Edmond Dédé1827–1901 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 85
Elizabeth Greenfield1817–1876 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 86
Mary Emilie Holmes1850–1906 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 87
Reginald De Koven1859–1920 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 88
Joseph Brackett1797–1882 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 89
Helen Hopekirk1856–1945 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 90TBTheodore Baker1851–1934 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured—
- 91
Eleanor Everest Freer1864–1942 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 92WAWilliam Arms Fisher1861–1948 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured—
- 93JLJoseph Lacalle1859–1937 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured—
- 94
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Phoebe Knapp1839–1908 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 95EEEdwin Eugene Bagley1857–1922 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured—
- 96
Timothee Adamowski1858–1943 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 97
John William Boone1864–1927 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 98
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Clara Kathleen Rogers1844–1931 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 99
Frank Lebby Stanton1857–1927 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured— - 100
Annie Sherwood Hawks1835–1918 · 🇺🇸 United States · Musiciansnot measured—
How this is measured
- Placing people in time. Each person belongs to the century in which they were most active — around age 35, and never after their death.
- Who ranks highest. Within a century, people are ranked where two independent signals agree: how many of the world’s Wikipedia language editions cover them, and how many people actually read about them. Article counts alone can be lifted by a person’s own circle; readers cannot.
- Fame in print. The curves count how often a name appears in Google Books from 1800 to 2019, as a share of all the words printed each year, in the person’s own language wherever that corpus exists. Those decades are over, so each measurement is made once and kept.
- What is left out. A lifetime is measured only from 1820, when there is enough print to judge; the five years after a death are skipped as obituaries; and a name shared with someone equally notable is credited to neither.