Here is the list of famous homeschooled individuals. As I mentioned in Part 1, many were homeschooled before public schools were available or before it was the norm. That fact does not diminish the fact that these people were still educated by parents and not certified teachers. However, I always want to emphasize that homeschoolers and certified teachers should never be at odds.
List of Famous Homeschooled Students
Presidents
John Adams
John Quincy Adams
Grover Cleveland
James Garfield
William Henry Harrison
Andrew Jackson
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
James Madison
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
John Tyler
George Washington
Woodrow Wilson
Governors
Patrick Henry [VA]
Charles Pickney III [SC]
Richard D. Spaight [NC]
William Livingston [NJ]
Richard Bassett [DE]
U.S. Senators and Congressmen
William S. Johnson [CT]
George Clymer [PA]
John Francis Mercer [MD]
William Blout [TN]
William Few [GA]
Businessmen
Andrew Carnegie – steel industrialist
Amadeo Giannini – Bank of America’s founder
Horace Greeley – founder of New York Tribune
Soichiro Honda – created Honda automobile company
Peter Kindersley – book illustrator and publisher
Ray Kroc – founder of McDonald’s fast food restaurant chain
Jimmy Lai – newspaper publisher; founder of Giordano International
Dr. Orison Swett Marden – founder, Success magazine
Adolph Ochs – New York Times founder
Joseph Pulitzer – newspaper publisher; established Pulitzer Prize
Colonel Harland Sanders – started Kentucky Fried Chicken
Dave Thomas – founder of the Wendy’s restaurant chain
Mariah Witcher – founder of Mariahs Famous Cookies
Daniel Mills – founder of Salem Ridge Press
Inventors
Alexander Graham Bell – invented the telephone
John Moses Browning – firearms inventor and designer
Peter Cooper – invented skyscraper, built first U.S. commercial locomotive
Thomas Edison – invented the stock ticker, mimeograph, phonograph, and perfected the electric light bulb
Benjamin Franklin – invented the lightning rod
Elias Howe – invented sewing machine
William Lear – airplane creator
Cyrus McCormick – invented grain reaper
Guglielmo Marconi – developed radio
Eli Whitney – invented the cotton gin
Sir Frank Whittle – invented turbo jet engine
Orville and Wilbur Wright – built the first successful airplane
Chief Justices of U.S. Supreme Court
John Rutledge
John Jay
John Marshall
College Presidents
John Witherspoon — Yale
Timothy Dwight — Princeton
William S. Johnson — Columbia
Preachers / Missionaries
John & Charles Wesley
John Owen
Johnathon Edwards
William Carey
Dwight D. Moody
John Newton
Hudson Taylor
Authors
Mark Twain
George Bernard Shaw
Irving Berlin
Charles Dickens
C.S. Lewis
Famous Women
Abigail Adams
Mercy Warren
Martha Washington
Florence Nightingale
Phyllis Wheatley
Agatha Christie
Pearl S. Buck
Generals
“Stonewall” Jackson
Robert E. Lee
Douglas MacArthur
George Patton
Artists
John Singleton Copley
Andrew Wyeth
Rembrandt Peale
Claude Money
Ansel Adams
Composers
Anton Bruckner
Felix Mendelssohn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Francis Poulenc
Educators
Amos Bronson Alcott – innovative teacher, father of Louisa May Alcott
Catharine Beecher – co-founder of the Hartford Female Seminary
Jill Ker Conway – first woman president of Smith College
Timothy Dwight – President of Yale University
William Samuel Johnson – President of Columbia College
Horace Mann – “Father of the American Common School”
Charlotte Mason – Founder of Charlotte Mason College of Education
Fred Terman – President of Stanford University
Frank Vandiver – President of Texas A&M University
Booker T. Washington – Founder of Tuskegee Institute
John Witherspoon – President of Princeton University
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