American Trailblazers: A Celebration of All But Forgotten Firsts

Among the most fascinating figures from America's past are the men and women who performed some singular feat that's been completely overlooked or that gets only a bare mention in the history books of today. American Trailblazers celebrates a few of these remarkable people, all of whom left an enduring imprint on their time through their milestone innovations or inspirational accomplishments. The book's thirty-two chapters are divided into two groups representing the fields in which the characters excelled—Culture and Society or Science and Industry. The subjects come from every period in our nation's history and all walks of life—from humanitarians, adventurers, and entertainers to political figures, inventors, and entrepreneurs. They range from fearless Quaker housewife Mary Dyer, who was hanged in Massachusetts in 1660 while fighting for religious freedom, to H. Edward Roberts, the father of the personal computer, a maverick who sold his successful electronics company to study medicine and become a Georgia country doctor. From the pregnant nineteen-year-old heroine who took command of a clipper ship in distress in the dangerous waters off Cape Horn to the scientist who invented modern forensic toxicology, these rare individualists fix themselves firmly in our imagination with their mesmerizing stories.