Massachusetts has produced an extraordinary collection of public figures. Its four US presidents were John Adams (1735–1826), a signer of the Declaration of Independence; his son John Quincy Adams (1767–1848); John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–63), and George Herbert Walker Bush (b.Milton, 12 June 1924). All four served in Congress. John Adams was also the first US vice president; John Quincy Adams served as secretary of state under James Monroe, Calvin Coolidge (b.Vermont, 1872–1933) was governor of Massachusetts before his election to the vice-presidency in 1920 and his elevation to the presidency in 1923. George Bush was elected vice president on the Republican ticket in 1980 and reelected in 1984. Bush was elected president in 1988. Two others who held the office of vice president were another signer of the Declaration of Independence, Elbridge Gerry (1744–1814), for whom the political practice of gerrymandering is named, and Henry Wilson (b.New Hampshire, 1812–75), a US senator from Massachusetts before his election with Ulysses S. Grant.
Massachusetts's great jurists include US Supreme Court Justices Joseph Story (1779–1845), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935), Louis D. Brandeis (b.Kentucky, 1856–1941), and Felix Frankfurter (b.Austria, 1882–1965). David Souter (b.1939), a Supreme Court justice appointed during the Bush administration, was born in Melrose. Stephen Breyer (b.California, 1939), another Supreme Court justice, was a Circuit Court of Appeals judge in Boston before his appointment. Important federal officeholders at the cabinet level were Henry Knox (1750–1806), the first secretary of war; Timothy Pickering (1745–1820), the first postmaster general and later secretary of war and secretary of state under George Washington and John Adams; Levi Lincoln (1749–1820), attorney general under Jefferson; William Eustis (1753–1825), secretary of war under Madison; Jacob Crowninshield (1770–1808), secretary of the navy under Jefferson, and his brother Benjamin (1772–1851), who held the same office under Madison; Daniel Webster (b.New Hampshire, 1782–1852), US senator from Massachusetts who served as secretary of state under William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Millard Fillmore; Edward Everett (1794–1865), a governor and ambassador who served as secretary of state under Fillmore; George Bancroft (1800–1891), a historian who became secretary of the Navy under James K. Polk; Caleb Cushing (1800–1879), attorney general under Franklin Pierce; Charles Devens (1820–91), attorney general under Rutherford B. Hayes; Christian Herter (1895–1966), secretary of state under Dwight Eisenhower; Elliot L. Richardson (1920–2000), secretary of health, education and welfare, secretary of defense, and attorney general under Richard Nixon; Henry Kissinger (b.Germany, 1923), secretary of state under Nixon and Gerald Ford and a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1973; and Robert F. Kennedy (1925–68), attorney general under his brother John and later US senator from New York.
Other federal officeholders include some of the most important figures in American politics. Samuel Adams (1722–1803), the Boston Revolutionary leader, served extensively in the Continental Congress and was later governor of the Bay State. John Hancock (1737–93), a Boston merchant and Revolutionary, was the Continental Congress's first president and later became the first elected governor of the state. In the 19th century, Massachusetts sent abolitionist Charles Sumner (1811–74) to the Senate. As ambassador to England during the Civil War, John Quincy Adams's son Charles Francis Adams (1807–86) played a key role in preserving US-British amity. At the end of the century, Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924) emerged as a leading Republican in the US Senate, where he supported regulatory legislation, protectionist tariffs, and restrictive immigration laws, and opposed women's suffrage and the League of Nations; his grandson, also Henry Cabot Lodge (1902–85), was an internationalist who held numerous federal posts and was a US senator. Massachusetts has provided two US House speakers: John W. McCormack (1891–1980) and Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. (1912–94). Other well-known legislators include Edward W. Brooke (b.1919), the first black US senator since Reconstruction, and Edward M. Kennedy (b.1932), President Kennedy's youngest brother and a leading Senate liberal. Paul Tsongas (1941–97), a senator and presidential candidate during the 1992 election, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. Michael S. Dukakis (b.1933), a former governor of the state and the 1988 Democratic nominee for president, was born in Brookline.
Among other historic colonial and state leaders were John Winthrop (b.England, 1588–1649), a founder of Massachusetts and longtime governor; William Bradford (b.England, 1590–1657), a founder of Plymouth, its governor, and author of its classic history; Thomas Hutchinson (1711–80), colonial lieutenant governor and governor during the 1760s and 1770s; and Paul Revere (1735–1818), the Patriot silversmith-courier, who was later an industrial pioneer.
Literary genius has flourished in Massachusetts. In the 17th century, the colony was the home of poets Anne Bradstreet (1612–72) and Edward Taylor (1645–1729) and of the prolific historian, scientist, theologian, and essayist Cotton Mather (1663–1728). Eighteenth-century notables include the theologian Jonathan Edwards (b.Connecticut, 1703–58), poet Phillis Wheatley (b.Senegal, 1753–84), and numerous political essayists and historians. During the 1800s, Massachusetts was the home of novelists Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64), Louisa May Alcott (b.Pennsylvania, 1832–88), Horatio Alger (1832–99), and Henry James (b.New York, 1843–1916); essayists Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) and Henry David Thoreau (1817–62); and such poets as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (b.Maine, 1807–82), John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94), James Russell Lowell (1819-91), and Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Classic historical writings include the works of George Bancroft (1800–91), William Hickling Prescott (1796–1859), John Lothrop Motley (1814–77), Francis Parkman (1823–93), and Henry B. Adams (1838–1918). Among 20th-century notables are novelists John P. Marquand (b.Delaware, 1893–1960) and John Cheever (1912–82); poets Elizabeth Bishop (1911–79), Robert Lowell (1917–77), Anne Sexton (1928–74), and Sylvia Plath (1932–63); and historian Samuel Eliot Morison (1887–1976). In philosophy, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) was one of the founders of pragmatism; Henry James's elder brother, William (b.New York, 1842–1910), was a pioneer in the field of psychology; and George Santayana (b.Spain, 1863–1952), philosopher and author, grew up in Boston. Mary Baker Eddy (b.New Hampshire, 1821–1910) founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, during the 1870s.
Reformers have abounded in Massachusetts, especially in the 19th century. William Lloyd Garrison (1805–79), Wendell Phillips (1811–84), and Lydia Maria Child (1802–80) were outstanding abolitionists. Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793–1880), Lucy Stone (1818–93), Abigail Kelley Foster (1810–87), Margaret Fuller (1810–50), and Susan Brownell Anthony (1820–1906) were leading advocates of women's rights. Horace Mann (1796–1859), the state secretary of education, led the fight for public education; and Mary Lyon (1797–1849) founded Mount Holyoke, the first women's college.
Efforts to improve the care and treatment of the sick, wounded, and handicapped were led by Samuel Gridley Howe (1801–76), Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802–87), and Clara Barton (1821–1912), founder of the American Red Cross. The 20th-century reformer and NAACP leader William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963) was born in Great Barrington.
Leonard Bernstein (1918–90) was a composer and conductor of worldwide fame. Arthur Fiedler (1894–79) was the celebrated conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. Composers include William Billings (1746–1800), Carl Ruggles (1876–1971), and Alan Hovhaness (1911–2000). Charles Bulfinch (1763–1844), Henry H. Richardson (b.Louisiana, 1838–86), and Louis Henri Sullivan (1856–1924) have been among the nation's important architects. Painters include John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), James Whistler (1834–1903), Winslow Homer (1836–1910), and Frank Stella (b.1936); Horatio Greenough (1805–52) was a prominent sculptor.
Among the notable scientists associated with Massachusetts are Nathaniel Bowditch (1773–1838), a mathematician and navigator; Samuel F. B. Morse (1791–1872), inventor of the telegraph; and Robert Hutchins Goddard (1882–1945), a physicist and rocketry pioneer.
Two professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, have won the Nobel Prize in economics—Paul A. Samuelson (b.Indiana, 1915), in 1970, and Franco Modigliani (b.Italy, 1918), in 1985. Other winners of the Nobel Prize include: Merton Miller (1923–2000), in economics; William Sharpe (b.1934), in economics; Douglass C. North (b.1920), 1993 co-recipient in economics; Elias James Corey (b.1928); Henry Kendall (1926–99), 1990 co-recipient in physics; and Joseph E. Murray (b.1919), the 1990 winner in medicine or physiology.
Massachusetts's most famous journalist has been Isaiah Thomas (1750–1831). Its great industrialists include textile entrepreneurs Francis Lowell (1775–1817) and Abbott Lawrence (1792–1855). Elias Howe (1819–67) invented the sewing machine.
Massachusetts was the birthplace of television journalists Mike Wallace (b.1918) and Barbara Walters (b.1931). Massachusetts-born show business luminaries include director Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959); actors Walter Brennan (1894–1974), Jack Haley (1901–79), Ray Bolger (1904–84), Bette Davis (1908–84), and Jack Lemmon (1925–2001); and singers Donna Summer (b.1948) and James Taylor (b.1948). Outstanding among Massachusetts-born athletes was world heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano (Rocco Francis Marchegiano, 1925–69), who retired undefeated in 1956.