Our favorite Bostonian is, of course, the late President, John F. Kennedy. Forever young, handsome, wealthy, and carried the hope of a new generation, our generation. But there are some others. Who can forget Good Will Hunting, with famous Bostonians Matt Damon and Ben Affleck? The old colonial bunch, like the Adams (John and Abigail), Ben Franklin, John Hancock, James Otis, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and John Quincy Adams.
But there are many more, including some transplants who are claimed by Boston, like the greatest hitter of all time, Ted Williams, originally from San Diego. How about a rotund fellow from a Baltimore orphanage by the name of Georgie Ruth, otherwise known as Babe Ruth. Boston sent him off to great fame in New York!
The list is impressive, and I will try to group them together as best I can.
Writers, poets, authors: Edgar Allan Poe, Kahlil Gibran, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau (why do all the famous writers use three names?), William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Bishop, William Monroe Trotter, Howard Zinn, Margaret Fuller, Robert Frost (my personal favorite), Cotton Mather, Jack Kerouac, Theodore White, Phyllis Wheatley, William Monroe Trotter, Julia Child, and Sylvia Plath.
Activists, and risk takers: Prince Hall, James Otis, Anne Hutchinson, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Lucy Stone, Elie Wiesel, Noam Chomsky, Muriel Snowden, Margaret Fuller, Mel King, Melnea Cass, Julia Ward Howe, Dorothea Dix, Francis Cabot Lowell, Horace Mann, Helen Keller, Clara Barton, W.E.B. DuBois, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Louis Farrakhan, and Malcolm X.
Lawmakers, and judges: Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Josiah Quincy III, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., John Winthrop, James Michael Curley, Thomas Menino, Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, Louis Brandeis, Calvin Coolidge, Michael Bloomberg, Margaret Marshall, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Henry Knox, John Kerry, Bobby Kennedy, Elizabeth Warren, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Edward Brooke.
Inventors, designers and innovators: An Wang, Samuel Morse, Henry Hobson Richardson, Elma Lewis, Henry Higginson, Maurice Starr, Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz, Edwin Land, Winslow Homer, John Harvard, Sumner Redstone, Sidney Farber, Francis Cabot Lowell, John Warren, Mary Baker Eddy, Frederick Law Olmsted, Alexander Graham Bell, William Rosenberg, and Tim Berners-Lee.
Music and the arts: Yo-Yo Ma, Arthur Fiedler, Leonard Bernstein, Matt Damon, Norman Rockwell, James Taylor, Robert Goulet, Ray Bolger, Jack Lemmon, Bette Davis, Donna Summer, Edgar Allan Poe, Uma Thurman, James Spader, Leonard Nimoy, Ed Ames, Bobby Brown, Roger Miller, John Mayer, Van Morrison, Lee Remick, Steven Van Zandt, Dick Dale, Jane Alexander, Chick Corea, Aerosmith, Boston, Mark Wahlberg, and Julia Ward Howe.
Sports: Bobby Orr, San Diegan Ted Williams, Oaklander Bill Russell, Red Auerbach, Nancy Kerrigan, Indiana’s Larry Bird, Pedro Martinez, Puerto Rico’s David Ortiz, Tom Brady, Bob Cousy, John L. Sullivan, Howie Long, Carlton Fisk, Joe Cronin, Lefty Grove, Jimmy Foxx, Cy. Young, and Dr. J.
Others: Benjamin Bradlee, Abigail Adams, Steve Carrell, Jay Leno, Fred Allen, Richard Scarry, Krista McAuliffe, the Boston Strangler (Albert DeSalvo), Conan, Fanny Farmer, Peter Lynch, Whitey Bulger, Mike Wallace, and a Man Named Charlie.
You must know of a few too!
