name, claim to fame, birthplace
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Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, Weymouth.
John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, Braintree.
John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States, Braintree.
Henry Adams, historian, novelist, Boston.
Samuel Adams, Revolutionary patriot, Boston.
Jack Albertson, actor, Malden.
Tenley Albright, Olympic gold medal-winning figure skater, Newton Center.
Jane Alexander, Tony Award-winning actress, Boston.
Horatio Alger, author, Revere.
Fred Allen, radio personality, Cambridge.
Susan B. Anthony, woman suffragist, Adams.

F. Lee Bailey, criminal defense attorney, Waltham.
Emily Green Balch, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, Boston.
George Bancroft, historian, Worcester.
Frederick A. Barnard, founder of Barnard College, Sheffield.
John Bartlett, editor, Plymouth.
Josiah Bartlett, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Amesbury.
Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, Oxford.
Leonard Bernstein, conductor, Lawrence.
Erastus B. Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Carpet Mills, West Boylston.
Forrest M. Bird, inventor, Stoughton.
Harold Stephen Black, inventor, Leominster.
Ray Bolger, actor, Boston.
John H. Breck, cosmetics manufacturer, Holyoke.
Walter Brennan, Academy Award-winning actor, Lynn.
Percy Williams Bridgman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Cambridge.
Rachel Fuller Brown, inventor, Springfield.
William Cullen Bryant, poet, editor, Cummington.
Charles Bulfinch, architect, Boston.
Luther Burbank, horticulturalist, Lancaster.
Daniel Hudson Burnham, architect, Henderson.
George Bush, 41st President of the United States, Milton.
Vannevar Bush, co-founder of the National Science Foundation, Everett.

Andrew H. Card, Jr., White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Transportation, Holbrook.
John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, Leominster.
John Cheever, novelist, short story writer, Quincy.
John Ciardi, poet, Boston.
William D. Coolidge, inventor, Hudson.
John Singleton Copley, painter, Boston.
e. e. cummings, poet, Cambridge.
Nathaniel Currier, lithographer, Roxbury.

Richard Henry Dana, adventurer, Cambridge.
Bette Davis, Academy Award-winningactress, Lowell.
Cecil B. DeMille, film director, Ashfield.
Emily Dickinson, poet, Amherst.
W. E. B. DuBois, civil rights leader, Great Barrington.
Thomas C. Durant, organizer of the Union Pacific Railroad, Lee.
William C. Durant, automobile manufacturer, Boston.
Leo Durocher, baseball player and manager, Springfield.

Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard College, Boston.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher poet, Boston.
Brian Evans, singer, Haverhill.

Fannie Farmer, author of cookbooks, Boston.
Geraldine Farrar, operatic soprano, Melrose.
Arthur Fiedler, conductor, Boston.
Cyrus Field, primary financier of the first Transatlantic Cable, Stockbridge.
Marshall Field, department store founder, Conway.
Edward A. Filene, department store founder, Salem.
Ann Smith Franklin, printer, almanac publisher, Boston.
Benjamin Franklin, statesman, scientist, publisher, Boston.
Buckminster Fuller, architect, educator, Milton.

Erle Stanley Gardner, mystery writer, Malden.
William Lloyd Garrison, journalist, Newburyport.
Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, Springfield.
Elbridge Gerry, Vice-President of the United States, Marblehead.
A. Bartlett Giamatti, commissioner of baseball, Boston.
Charles Dana Gibson, artist, illustrator, Roxbury.
Robert Hutchings Goddard, rocket scientist, Worcester.
Ruth Gordon, playwright, Academy Award-winning actress, Wollaston.

Granville Stanley Hall, psychologist, Ashfield.
John Hancock, statesman, Braintree.
Childe Hassam, painter, Boston.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, author, Salem.
George V. Higgins, novelist, Brockton.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, poet, Cambridge.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., jurist, Boston.
Winslow Homer, painter, Boston.
Joseph Hooker, Union general, Hadley.
Mark Hopkins, president of Williams College, Stockbridge.
Elias Howe, inventor, Spencer.
Samuel Howe, founder of the first U.S. school for the mentally retarded, Boston.

Helen Hunt Jackson, writer, Amherst.
William Le Baron Jenney, architect, Fairhaven.

Madeline Kahn, actress, Boston.
Herbert T. Kalmus, co-developer of Technicolor, Chelsea.
Edward M. Kennedy, U.S. Senator, Brookline.
John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, Brookline.
Joseph P. Kennedy, financier, Boston.
Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General of the United States, Brookline.
Jack Kerouac, novelist, Lowell.

Abbott Lawrence, manufacturer, Groton.
Jack Lemmon, Academy Award-winning actor, Boston.
Dorothy Loudon, Tony Award-winning actress, Boston.
James S. Love, founder of Burlington Industries, Cambridge.
Amy Lowell, poet, Brookline.
Percival Lowell, astronomer, Boston.
James Russell Lowell, poet, Cambridge.
Robert Lowell, poet, Boston.
Mark Lyon, founder of Mount Holyoke College, Buckland.

Arthur MacArthur, Spanish-American War general, Chicopee Falls.
Connie Mack, baseball manager, East Brookfield.
Donald MacMillan, Arctic explorer, Provincetown.
William Manchester, biographer, Attleboro.
Horace Mann, educator, Franklin.
Rocky Marciano, heavyweight boxing champion, Brockton.
William L. Marcy, U.S. Secretary of War, U.S. Secretary of State, Southbridge.
Cotton Mather, clergyman, Boston.
Increase Mather, clergyman, Dorchester.
Sharon Christa McAuliffe, teacher, astronaut, Framingham.
Jo Dee Messina, country singer, Holliston.
Nelson Miles, Indian Wars general, Westminster.
Dwight L. Moody, evangelist, East Northfield.
Robin Moore, novelist, Concord.
Samuel Eliot Morison, naval historian, Boston.
Robert Morse, Tony Award-winning actor, Newton.
Samuel F. B. Morse, painter, inventor, Charlestown.
William T. G. Morton, first to use ether as an anesthetic, Charlton.
Lucretia Coffin Mott, abolitionist and woman's rights advocate, Nantucket.

Barry Newman, Emmy Award-winning actor, Boston.
Leonard Nimoy, actor, Boston.

George S. Parker, founder of Parker Brothers, Salem.
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, founder of the first U.S. kindergarten, Billerica.
Charles S. Peirce, philosopher, Cambridge.
Frances Perkins, U.S. Secretary of Labor, Boston.
Albert Pike, teacher, lawyer, Boston.
Sylvia Plath, poet, novelist, Boston.
Edgar Allan Poe, writer, Boston.
David Porter, War of 1812 commodore, Boston.
Charles Pratt, oilman, Watertown.
Robert Preston, actor, Newton Highlands.
Israel Putnam, Revolutionary War general, Salem Village.

Ella Raines, actress, Snoquaimie.
Lee Remick, actress, Boston.
Paul Revere, silversmith, Revolutionary patriot, Boston.
Charles H. Revson, founder of Revlon Cosmetics, Boston.
Laura Elizabeth Richards, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, Boston.
Elliott Richardson, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Attorney General, Boston.
Robert H. Rines, inventor, Boston.
Albert Pinkham Ryder, painter, New Bedford.

Anne Sexton, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Newton.
Leslie Stahl, television news correspondent, Lynn.
Lucy Stone, woman suffragist, West Brookfield.
Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Marblehead.
Anne Sullivan, teacher of Helen Keller, Feeding Hills.
John L. Sullivan, heavyweight boxing champion, Boston.
Louis Henry Sullivan, architect, Boston.
Donna Summer, singer, Boston.
Charles B. Sumner, Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, Canton.
Gustavus Franklin Swift, "packaged meat" pioneer, Sandwich.

James Taylor, singer, Boston.
Paul Theroux, novelist, essayist, Medford.
J. Walter Thompson, advertising executive, Pittsfield.
Henry David Thoreau, author, Concord.
Max Tishler, inventor, Boston.

Mike Wallace, television news correspondent, Brookline.
Barbara Walters, television interviewer, Boston.
Joseph Warren, Revolutionary War general, Roxbury.
James McNeill Whistler, painter, Lowell.
Theodore White, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Boston.
John Greenleaf Whittier, poet, Haverhill.
Eli Whitney, inventor, Westborough.

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This page was last updated on October 20, 2017.