November 22, 2006
The 100 Most Influential Americans VII Posted by John Steele Gordon at 01:00 PM EST Joshua Zeitz writes, “I don’t want to quibble with Mr. Gordon’s selections [says he, proceeding to do exactly that], but he does seem to have strained to find a few women and people of color to include in his list.” I’m glad Mr. Zeitz has so much insight into my thought processes that he can detect “strain.” In fact, I didn’t strain at all to include them. They deserved it, in my opinion. Mr. Zeitz is very concerned with issues regarding race and gender. I am not. These lists are always going to be greatly affected by the individual’s predilections. He writes, “In fact, he names only four women: Harriet Beecher Stowe, the great abolitionist novelist; Rachel Carson, the environmentalist who wrote Silent Spring; Julia Child, one of the first, and arguably the greatest, of the television chefs; and Oprah Winfrey, who needs no introduction.”
Julia Child’s importance lies with her magnum opus, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Published over 40 years ago, it still sells many, many thousands of copies a year. It introduced millions to serious cooking for the first time, by convincing them that such cooking was within their grasp, and sparked the extraordinary revolution in American food of the last few decades. Her television shows made her world famous—they were watched by many who couldn’t scramble an egg and didn’t want to—thanks to her cheerful, no-nonsense, forthright personality, which was quite unaffected by the presence of a television camera. But her influence flowed from what might well be the best—and most influential—cookbook ever written. He writes, “One of the dangers of compiling these lists is that they will invariably be very white and very male.” Yes. I’m afraid I don’t see what is dangerous here. American history up to this point has been very white and very male. I’m not about to sprinkle my list with women and nonwhites just to achieve the phony “diversity” that so obsesses academia. I have no doubt that the historians engaging in an exercise such as this one in 2106 will produce lists that are much less white and male, because the ranks of the most influential Americans by then will be much less white and male. I don’t think Thurgood Marshall or Cesar Chavez come anywhere close to deserving a place on the list, which is not to denigrate either man. If the list is limited to 100, then to include one person is to necessarily exclude someone else. Both Betty Friedan and Margaret Sanger made the merged list, if not mine. So did Frederick Douglass. Martin Luther King, Jr., ranks in the top ten in the merged list, and I think in retrospect that he should have been much higher on mine. But the idea that he was more influential than Hamilton or Jackson is, in my opinion, going way too far. He writes, “I would also argue that Mr. Gordon’s list includes too many business innovators, and too few religious figures.” That may well be, as I am, obviously, very interested in and knowledgeable about business history and couldn’t care less about religion. The latter has bored me since the first time I was dragged—figuratively kicking and screaming—into church. Likewise, my list has Broadway music well represented and jazz not at all. I love Broadway and am indifferent to jazz. It is interesting that Stephen Foster is the only composer to make the list. I wonder if that is because one panelist, loving Broadway, included his favorite composers, while another, loving jazz, included his, and so on, so no composer got enough votes to make the list. That is why it would have been nice to get together with the other panelists and have each explain why X deserved a spot. Perhaps that is why DeWitt Clinton didn’t make the cut: Only one panelist (myself) is a New Yorker. (Doris Kearns Goodwin grew up in Brooklyn, but has lived in Boston—wherever that is—for many years.)
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