http://takeyourkidsoutofpublicschool.com/2009/05/famous-people-who-were-homeschooled/
Homeschooling is a modern term but it is a form of education that has been around for centuries. In fact, most children were taught at home until the push for public schools began in the 1830s-1840s. If you look at references to education before there was a public school system, you will see phrases such as “tutored at home,” “self-taught,” or “no formal education,” referring to individuals we might now call homeschooled.
My goal is to be as thorough and as accurate as possible. I would like to clarify that not everyone on the following list was homeschooled exclusively, but homeschooling was definitely a significant factor in their education at one time or another.Famous People Who Were Homeschooled
Constitutional Convention Delegates
Richard Basseti – Governor of Delaware
William Blount – U.S. Senator
George Clymer – U.S. Representative
William Few – U.S. Senator
Benjamin Franklin – Inventor and Statesman
Alexander Hamilton – Lawyer and Economist
William Houston – Lawyer
William S. Johnson – Columbia College President
William Livingston – Governor of New Jersey
James Madison – 4th President of the U.S.
George Mason – Justice of Virginia County Court
John Francis Mercer – U.S. Representative
Charles Pickney III – Governor of S. Carolina
John Rutledge – Chief Justice U.S. Supreme Court
Richard D. Spaight – Governor of North Carolina
George Washington – 1st President of the U.S.
John Witherspoon – President of Princeton
George Wythe – Justice of Virginia High Court
Presidents
John Adams
John Quincy Adams
Grover Cleveland
Jefferson Davis (the only president of the short-lived Confederate States of America)
James Garfield
William Henry Harrison
Andrew Jackson
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
James Madison
James Polk
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
John Tyler
George Washington
Woodrow Wilson
Statesmen
Henry Fountain Ashurst
William Jennings Bryan
Winston Churchill
Henry Clay
John Dickinson
Pierre du Pont
Benjamin Franklin
Patrick Henry
William Penn
Daniel Webster
Military Officers
John Barry – Senior Navy Officer
George Rogers Clark – Revolutionary War hero
Nathanael Greene – Revolutionary War hero
Nathan Hale – Revolutionary War hero
Stonewall Jackson – Civil War General
John Paul Jones – Father of the American Navy
Robert E. Lee – Civil War General
Douglas MacArthur – U.S. General
George Patton – U.S. General
Matthew Perry – U.S. Naval Officer
John Pershing – U.S. General
David Dixon Porter – Civil War Admiral
Joseph Bradley Varnum – Revolutionary War hero
U.S. Supreme Court Judges
Charles Evans Hughes
John Jay
John Marshall
John Rutledge
Sandra Day O’Connor
Religious Leaders
Joan of Arc
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
William Carey
Jonathan Edwards
Philipp Melancthon
Dwight L. Moody
John Newton
John Owen
Hudson Taylor
John & Charles Wesley
Brigham Young
Explorers
William Clark – Lewis & Clark Expedition
Meriwether Lewis – Lewis & Clark Expedition
John Wesley Powell – Colorado River Expedition
Sir Ernest Shackleton – Antarctic Expedition
Scientists
Wilson A. Bentley – “The Snowflake Man”
George Washington Carver – agricultural research
Pierre Curie – discovered radium
Albert Einstein – theoretical physicist
Paul Erdos – Hungarian mathematician
Michael Faraday – electrochemist
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes – French physicist
Oliver Heaviside – electromagnetism researcher
T.H. Huxley – biologist, zoologist, Darwinist
Ruth Lawrence – mathematician
Gilbert Newton Lewis – physical chemist
Ada Lovelace – founder of scientific computing
Benoit Mandelbrot – pioneer in fractal geometry
Blaise Pascal – French mathematician
Joseph Priestley – father of modern chemistry
Samuel C. C. Ting – Chinese American physicist
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky – Russian rocket scientist
Inventors
Alexander Graham Bell – invented the telephone
John Moses Browning – firearms inventor/designer
Peter Cooper – built the first modern skyscraper, the first commercial locomotive, and patented the first gelatin dessert which was later named Jell-O
Thomas Edison – invented the stock ticker, mimeograph, phonograph, and 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 – brothers who built the first successful airplane
Artists
William Blake – painter, engraver, poet
John Singleton Copley – American Colonial painter
Evelyn De Morgan – Pre-Raphaelite painter
Christian Grew – American Painter
Donal Hord – San Diego sculptor
Akiane Kramarik- 10-year-old art and poetry prodigy
Claude Monet – French Impressionist
Grandma Moses – American folk artist
Charles Willson Peale – American portrait artist
Lu Pinchang – ceramic sculptor
Leonardo da Vinci – Renaissance artist, sculptor
Andrew Wyeth – American realist painter
Jamie Wyeth – American realist painter
Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach – Baroque
Irving Berlin – Patriotic
Anton Bruckner – Symphonies
Noel Coward – Musicals
Felix Mendelssohn – Romantic
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Classical
John Porcaro – Experimental
Francis Poulenc – Choral
John Philip Sousa – “March King”
Writers
Louisa May Alcott – author of Little Women
Hans Christian Anderson – fairy tale writer
Margaret Atwood – Canadian novelist, poet
Fawn M. Brodie – biographer
Pearl S. Buck – Nobel prize-winning author
William F. Buckley, Jr. – conservative writer
Willa Cather – American novelist
Agatha Christie – mystery author
Samuel Clemens – a.k.a. Mark Twain
Charles Dickens – British novelist
Robert Frost – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
Charlotte Perkins Gilman – early feminist writer
Alex Haley – African-American novelist
Sharlot Hall – poet, writer, Arizona historian
Joshua Harris- pastor and author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye
Bret Harte – frontier California journalist
L. Ron Hubbard – science fiction writer
Helen Keller – blind and deaf author and lecturer
Rose Wilder Lane – journalist, ghostwriter, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder
C.S. Lewis – Christian writer and apologist
Amy Lowell – Modernist poet
Gabriela Mistral – Nobel-prize winning Latin American poet
Sean O’Casey – Irish author
Thomas Paine – political writer during the American Revolution, author of Common Sense
Christopher Paolini – teen author of Eragon
Isabel Paterson – conservative political author
Beatrix Potter – author of Peter Rabbit Tales
Jedediah Purdy – author of For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today
Kenneth Rexroth – poet, translator, critical essayist
Carl Sandburg – American poet
George Bernard Shaw – Irish-born playwright
Mattie J. T. Stepanek – 11-year-old author of Heartsongs
Rosemary Sutcliff – historical novels for children
Rabindranath Tagore – Bengali poet, essayist, dramatist, songwriter
Leo Tolstoy – Russian writer
Mercy Warren – American Revolution eyewitness
Phillis Wheatley – African-American poet
Walt Whitman – American poet
Laura Ingalls Wilder – children’s book author
Virginia Woolf – English novelist
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
Erik Demaine – associate professor of Computer Science at MIT
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
Joyce Reed – Associate Dean of the College, Brown University
Fred Terman – President of Stanford University
Frank Vandiver – President of Texas A&M University
Booker T. Washington – teacher and founder of Tuskegee Institute
Noah Webster – “Father of American Christian Education”
John Witherspoon – President of Princeton University
Medical Practitioners
Clara Barton – started the Red Cross
Elizabeth Blackwell – first woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree
Florence Nightingale – Nurse
Susan La Flesche Picotte – first American Indian woman physician
Albert Schweitzer – Physician
Mary Walker – Civil War physician; recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor
Business Entrepreneurs
Andrew Carnegie – wealthy steel industrialist
Amadeo Giannini – Bank of America’s founder
Horace Greeley – New York Tribune founder
Soichiro Honda – creator of the 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
Performing Artists (Actors and Musicians)
Alan Alda – actor, screenwriter, producer
Louis Armstrong – king of jazz
BarlowGirl – Lauren, Alyssa, and Rebecca Barlow
Spencer Breslin – actor
Chris Brown – R&B singer, dancer, actor
The 5 Browns – five siblings who play classical music on five grand pianos
Aaron Carter – Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter
Charlie Chaplin – actor
Cherryholmes – Bluegrass family band
Erika Christensen – actress
Hilary Duff – actress, singer
Dakota Fanning – actress
Whoopi Goldberg – actress
Alexander Gould – actor, voice of Nemo in Finding Nemo
Hilary Hahn – classical violin virtuoso
Hanson – sibling singing group
Toby Hemingway – British actor known for his role as Reid Garwin in “The Covenant”
Jennifer Love Hewitt – actress
Hume brothers – Jon, Peter, and Dann of the Evermore alternative rock band from New Zealand
Tiffany Jo – Arizona yodeling star
Jonas Brothers – Kevin, Joe, and Nick
Nicole Jung – member of Korean girl group KARA
Josh Layne – harp musician
Lindsay Lohan – actress and singer
Scott MacIntyre – visually impaired pianist
Pat McMahon – television personality
Jena Malone – actress
Yehudi Menuhin – child prodigy violinist
Alyson “Aly” Michalka and Amanda Joy “AJ” Michalka – sister singing duo and actresses
Moffatts – Canadian version of Hanson
Trevor Morgan – American actor
Frankie Muniz – actor
Hayden Panettiere – actress best known for her role as Claire Bennet in Heroes and in “Remember the Titans”
Adam Paskowitz – lead singer, The Flys
LeAnne Rimes – teen-prodigy country music star
Rebecca St. James – contemporary Christian recording artist
Lindsey Shaw – actress known for her role as Jennifer Mosely on “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide”
Jordin Sparks – singer, actress, model and American Idol winner
Kristen Stewart – actress
Jeremy Sumpter – actor
Raven Symone – actress and singer best known for her role on “That’s So Raven”
Maria von Trapp – one of the Von Trapp Family Singers, the third child of Captain von Trapp
Sofia Vassilieva – actress
Kaitlyn Weaver – ice dancer
Devon Werkheiser – actor known for the role Ned Bigby on “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide”
Elijah Wood – actor best known as Frodo in the The Lord of the Rings
Evan Rachel Wood – actress
Athletes
Mike Beasley – basketball player
Tanith Belbin – figure skating champion
David Boudia – Olympic diver
Chad Compton – surfer
Alexa Glatch – tennis player
Katie Hoff – Olympic swimmer
Madison and Keiffer Hubbell – sibling ice dancers
Todd Lodwick – U.S. ski team member
Tamara McKinney – World Cup skier
Bode Miller – American alpine skier
Asia Muhammed – tennis player
Carly Patterson – Olympic gymnast
Ariel Rittenhouse – Olympic diver
Maria Sharapova – tennis player
Shayna Syken – figure skater
Jason Taylor – NFL football player
Timothy “Tim” Tebow – football player, Heisman Trophy winner
Sam Warren – basketball player
Venus and Serena Williams – tennis star sisters
Others
Abigail Adams – wife of John Adams; mother of John Quincy Adams
Ansel Adams – photographer
Susan B. Anthony – women’s rights leader
John James Audubon – ornithologist and artist
Alyssa Buecker – director, Milbo Productions
John Burroughs – naturalist
Jennie Chancey – historical costumer
Davy Crockett – frontiersman
Edward Curtis – photographer
Robin Lee Graham – youngest person to sail around the world at age 16
Alex and Brett Harris – twin teen writers and conference speakers for “The Rebelution,” a Christian ministry/youth organization
Eric Hoffer – social philosopher
Sam Houston – lawyer; first leader of Texas
Abraham Kuyper – Dutch politician, journalist
Mary Leakey – fossil hunter
Charles Fletcher Lummis – journalist, historian, photographer, founder of the Southwest Society
Harriet Martineau – first woman sociologist
Margaret Mead – cultural anthropologist
John Stuart Mill – free-market Economist
Charles Louis Montesquieu – philosopher
John Muir – naturalist
Raymond Parks – Civil Rights activist, husband of Rosa Parks
Sofia, Susan, and Judit Polgar – chess masters
Bill Ridell – Newspaperman
Will Rogers – Humorist
Eleanor Roosevelt – wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Bertrand Russell – Logician
Drew Ryun – co-founder of Generation Joshua, director of Jim Ryun Running Camp
Ned Ryun – co-founder of Generation Joshua, president of American Majority
Deborah Sampson – female soldier in the American Revolution
Emerson Spartz – 12-year-old internet entrepreneur (MuggleNet)
Herbert Spencer – philosopher, sociologist
Gloria Steinem – founder of Ms. magazine
Timmy Teepell – chief of staff for Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana
Lester Frank Ward – Father of American Sociology
Martha Washington – wife of George Washington
Frances E. C. Willard – educator, temperance leader, and suffragist
Frank Lloyd Wright – architect
John Lloyd Wright – architect, toy designer, inventor of Lincoln Logs
Sho Yano – gifted child prodigy
Elijah ben Solomon Zalman – Jewish scholar
This list was compiled by Compiled by Teri Ann Berg Olsen, author of “Learning for Life: Educational Words of Wisdom”http://www.knowledgehouse.info
Also a very good links to show that homeschooling does work.
http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/comp2001/HomeSchoolAchievement.pdf
1 comment:
Wow... and I thought we were such a minority!
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