From this country’s revolutionary beginning, Scottish-Americans have contributed greatly to the success of America. Many men and women have been the first in their respective fields to accomplish unparalleled feats that not only shaped their own destinies, but that of the United States as well. These Scottish-Americans include astronaut Neil Armstrong, businesswoman Juliette Gordon Low, and president Woodrow Wilson.
The new book by June Skinner Sawyers, Famous Firsts of Scottish-Americans, presents profiles of thirty prominent, pioneering Scottish-Americans.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. This accomplishment secured America’s role as the leader in the world’s space race. Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts in America in 1912. Woodrow Wilson became the 28th president of the United States. He helped to end World War I and founded the League of Nations, the precursor to today’s United Nations.
Included are inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, authors Washington Irving and Herman Melville, statesmen Alexander Hamilton and John Witherspoon, and United States presidents Ulysses S. Grant and James Monroe.
The people profiled and their accomplishments vary considerably, from car manufacturer David Dunbar Buick, who founded the first successful automobile manufacturing company in the world, to Rachel Carson, author of The Silent Spring, a book that played a major role in launching the environmental movement.
Famous Firsts of Scottish-Americans follows the first in this series, Famous Firsts of Black Americans, also by Pelican.