Famous Bay Staters
These are just a few of the famous people who were either born in Massachusetts or spent some important time in Massachusetts.
Abrigail Adams, first lady
John Adams, U.S. president
John Quincy Adams, U.S. president
L. Sherman Adams, introduced first mutual fund
Samuel Adams, patriot
Ben Afleck, actor
Howard Aiken, inventor of first digital computer
Bronson Alcott, author
Louisa May Alcott, novelist
William Alger, transcendentalist
Johnny Appleseed, aka John Chapman, apple tree planter
Bill Belichek, football coach
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone
Tim Berners-Lee, developer of the world wide web
Clarence Birdseye, developer of first frozen food
Thomas Blanchard, gun lathe inventor
Drew Bledsoe, football player
Tom Brady, football player
Deion Branch, football player
Walter Brennan, actor
Daniel Brickman, developed first electronic spreadsheat
Dana Brigham, bookseller, Brookline Booksmith
Edward Brooke, U.S. senator
Tedy Bruschi, football player
Linda Buck, Nobel prize winner in physiology
Bill Buckner, baseball player
Vannevar Bush, developer of first computer
Ellis Parker Butler, author of Pigs Is Pigs, 30 other books, and 2,000 short stories.
Rachel Carson, environmentalist
Roger Clement, baseball player
Matt Damon, actor
Larry David, actor
Laurie David, eco-warrior
Stephen Daye, set up first American printing press
Corey Dillon, football player
John Doucette, actor
Kitty Dukakis, wife of governor
Michael Dukakis, Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate
Charles and Frank Duryea, inventors of first successful gasoline-powered automobile
Tim Dwight, football player
Charles Eliot, landscape architect
Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist
Richard Fairbanks, tavern owner
Sidney Farber, first to use chemotherapy for cancer treatment
Keith Faulk, football player
Carlton Fisk, baseball player
Doug Flutie, football player
John Kenneth Galbraith, economist
Frank Gehry, architect
Walter Gilbert, discovered a technique to decode DNA
David Givens, football player
Terry Glenn, football player
Robert Goddard, rocket inventor
Charles Goodyear, developed first vulcanized rubber
Daniel Graham, football player
Rodney Harrison, football player
John Harvard, university named after him
Marquise Hill, football player
Ellis Hobbs, football player
Elias Howe, sewing machine inventor
Jonathon Jacobson, financier
Ned Johnson, financier
Ted Johnson, football player
John F. Kennedy, U.S. president
Joseph Kennedy, ambassador
Robert Kennedy, U.S. attorney general, U.S. senator, and presidential candidate
Ted Kennedy, U.S. senator
John Kerry, U.S. senator and presidential candidate
Seth Klarman, financier
Killer Kowalski, wrestler
Robert Kraft, football team owner
Edwin Land, inventor of Polaroid camera
Ty Law, football player
Francis Leiber, opened first swim school in America
Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. senator
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet
Robert Lowell, poet
Yo-Yo Ma, cellist
Julianna Margulies, actress
Cotton Mather, minister
Willie McGinest, football player
Lawyer Milloy, football player
James Henry Mitchell, inventor of Fig Newtons
William Morgan, inventor of volleyball (first called mintonette)
Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph
William T.G. Morton, dentist who first demonstrated the use of anesthesia
Robert Moses, mathematician, educator, and civil rights activist
Randy Moss, football player
James Naismith, inventor of basketball
Nicholas Negroponte, computer developer
Bobby Orr, hockey player
David Ortiz, baseball player
Deval Patrick, Massachusetts governor
Edgar Allen Poe, poet and short story writer
Louis Prang, printer of first American Christmas card
Harriet Quimby, first American woman to
be licensed as a pilot and first woman to make a solo flight across the English
Channel
Jeff Reardon, baseball player
Paul Revere, patriot and silversmith
Edith Nourse Rogers, first woman to serve in the U.S. house of representatives
Mitt Romney, Massachusetts governor
Babe Ruth, baseball player
Johnny Sain, baseball player
George Santayana, poet and philosopher
Richard Evans Schultes, ethnobotanist
Richard Seymour, football player
Beverly Sills, opera singer
Perry Spencer, inventor of microwave oven
Donté Stallworth, football player
Miles Standish, pioneer
Carol Stoltz, co-owner, Porter Square Books
Lofa Tatupu, football player
Mosi Tatupu, football player
Adalius Thomas, football player
Ray Tomlinson, sent first email message
Henry David Thoreau, author
Charles Thurber, typewriter inventor
Adam Vinatieri, football player
Jeff Vinik, financier
Mike Vrabel, football player
Ruth Wakefield, inventor of chocolate chip cookies
Robert Ware, founder of first professional training for architects in America
Bradford Washburn, climber, cartographer, and aerial photographer
James Watson, discover of DNA
Daniel Webster, U.S. congressman and senator, U.S. secretary of state
Jennifer Weiner, romance novelist
William Weld, Massachusetts governor
Wes Welker, football player
Helen Magill White, first woman to earn a Ph.D. in the U.S.
Ted Williams, baseball player
Edmund Wilson, sociobiologist
John Winthrop Sr., governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
John Winthrop Jr., Connecticut governor
Carl Yastremski, baseball player
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.com
