List of Swiss Americans
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
This is a list of notable Swiss Americans, including both original immigrants who obtained American citizenship and their American descendants.
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This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
To be included in this list, the person must have a Wikipedia article showing they are Swiss American or must have references showing they are Swiss American and are notable.
Contents
List
Business
- Robert Abplanalp (1922 - 2003), businessman, inventor of the aerosol valve
- Steve Ballmer (1956 - ), businessman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation
- Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), industrialist and art patron, once known as "America's most hated man".[1] as per CNBC one of the "Worst American CEOs of All Time".[2]
- Meyer Guggenheim (1828–1905), statesman, patriarch of Guggenheim family[3]
- Simon Guggenheim (1867–1941), businessman, politician, and philanthropist
- Milton Hershey (1857–1945), confectioner, philanthropist, and founder of The Hershey Chocolate Company
- Otto Frederick Hunziker (1873–1959), pioneer in the American and international dairy industry
- S. S. Kresge (1867–1966), merchant, philanthropist and founder of the The S. S. Kresge Company, now Sears Holdings Corporation.[4]
- Robert Lutz (1932- ), General Motors Vice Chairman of Product Development and Chairman of GM North America, the world's largest automaker[5]
- James G. Sterchi (1867–1932), furniture store magnate
- Bruce Tognazzini (1945- ), usability consultant in partnership the Nielsen Norman Group
The arts
Actors and directors
- René Murat Auberjonois (1940- ), film actor
- Theda Bara (1885–1955), silent film actress and sex symbol
- Wallace Beery (1885-1949), film actor
- Berry Berenson (1948–2001), photographer, actress, and model, mother of part Swiss descent
- Amy Brenneman (1964- ), film and TV actress, father of part Swiss descent
- Yul Brynner (1920-1985), actor, father of part Swiss descent
- James Caviezel (1968- ), film actor, paternal grandfather of Swiss descent[6]
- Billie Dove (1903–1997), film actress
- Marc Forster (1969- ), film director, raised in Davos (Switzerland), Swiss mother, holds Swiss citizenship
- Tyler Hoechlin (1987- ), film actor, father of part Swiss descent
- Q'Orianka Kilcher (1990- ), singer and actress, of part Swiss descent[7]
- George Lucas (1944- ), film director, of part Swiss descent[8]
- Bridget Marquardt (1975- ), model, actress
- Victor Mature (1913–1999), film actor[9]
- Jeremy Maxwell (1973- ), film actor
- Sean Michael (1988- ), film actor
- Jodi Ann Paterson (1975- ), model, actress and former beauty queen
- Michelle Pfeiffer (1958- ), film actress, maternal grandfather of Swiss descent[10]
- Ryan Seacrest (1974- ), television and radio host, television producer, and entrepreneur, of part Swiss descent
- August Schellenberg (1936- ), actor
- Liev Schreiber (1967- ), film actor, father of part Swiss descent
- Meryl Streep (1949- ), film actress, father of part Swiss descent
- William Wyler (1902–1981), film director [11]
- Renée Zellweger (1969- ), film actress, Swiss-born father[6]
Visual artists
- Herbert Matter (1907–1984), photographer and graphic designer
- Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947), portrait and impressionistic still-life painter
- Jeremiah Theus (1716–1774), painter
Writers
- William Frank Buckley (1925–2008), writer
- A. C. Frieden (1966- ), novelist
- Eudora Alice Welty (1909-2001), writer; ancestry can be traced to Emmental Valley of Switzerland; Swiss ancestral name Wälti
Musicians
- Melissa Auf der Maur (1972- ), singer
- Rudolph Ganz (1877–1972), pianist, conductor and composer
- Jewel (1974- ), singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and author[12]
- Cyndi Lauper (1953- ), singer-songwriter and actress
- Karina Lombard (1969- ), singer and actress
- Elvis Perkins (1976- ), singer-songwriter
Law and politics
Governors and presidents
- Anthony G. Brown (1961- ), Governor of Maryland
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), 34th President of the United States
- Herbert Hoover (1874–1964), 31st President of the United States[13]
- Robert B. Meyner (1908–1990), Governor of New Jersey
- Barack Obama (2008-), 44th President of the United States, (Swiss distant ancestors).[14]
- Emanuel L. Philipp (1861–1925), Governor of Wisconsin[15]
Congressmen and senators
- James L. Buckley (1923- ), Senator of New York
- Albert Gallatin (1761–1849), U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Senator of Pennsylvania, diplomat[15]
- James William Good (1866–1929), Congressman Iowa[15]
- Amy Klobuchar (1960- ), Senator of Minnesota
- James S. Negley (1826–1901), Congressman Pennsylvania[15]
- Robert Portman (1955-), Senator of Ohio[16]
- Benjamin F. Welty (1870-1962), Congressman from Allen County, Ohio; ancestry traced back to Emmental Valley, Switzerland; Swiss ancestral name Wälti
Other
- Warren E. Burger (1907–1995), Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986[17]
- August Claessens (1885–1954), politician, best known as one of the five New York Assemblymen
- Albert Gallatin (1761–1849), politician, ethnologist, linguist, founder of New York University, diplomat, and United States Secretary of the Treasury[18]
- Fred Iklé (1924-2011), Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
- Wally Schirra (1923–2007), astronaut, only person to fly in all of America's first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo)
- Samuel F. Snively (1859–1952), Mayor of Duluth, Minnesota[19]
- Peter Staub (1827–1904), Mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee[20]
- William Wirt (1772-1834), US Attorney General
Historical figures
- Fernand Auberjonois (1910–2004), journalist, foreign correspondent of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade[21]
- Edward Walter Eberle (1864–1929), admiral in the United States Navy, served as Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy and third Chief of Naval Operations[22]
- Robert Frank (1924- ), important figure in American photography and film[23]
- J. Edgar Hoover (1935–1972), first Director of the FBI
- Adolph Rickenbacker (1886–1976), pioneer of the electric guitar; founder of the Rickenbacker guitar company, whose products would be an important influence on 1960s music through, among others, The Beatles, The Who and The Byrds
- Eddie Rickenbacker (1890–1973), automobile race car driver and automotive designer, hero of World War I, government consultant in military matters and a pioneer in air transportation[24]
- John Sutter (1803–1880), Californian famous for his association with the California Gold Rush (in that gold was discovered by James W. Marshall in Sutter's Mill) and for establishing Sutter's Fort in an area that would later become the capital of California, Sacramento[25]
- John Augustus Sutter, Jr. (1826–1897), his son, a U.S. Consul to Acapulco, Mexico and the founder and planner of the City of Sacramento, California
- William Wirt (1772–1834), author and statesman who is credited with turning the position of United States Attorney General into one of influence[26]
- Henry Wirz (1822–1865), the only Confederate soldier executed in the aftermath of the American Civil War for war crimes[27]
- Felix Zollicoffer (1812–1862), newspaperman, three-term US Congressman from Tennessee, officer in the United States Army, and a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War
- John Joachim Zubly (1724–1781), pastor, planter, and statesman during the American Revolution[28]
Religion
- Daniel Kumler Flickinger (1824–1911), Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ
- Martin Marty (1834–1886), Benedictine priest
- Philip Schaff (1819–1893), Protestant theologian and a historian of the Christian church
Scientists and engineers
- Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (1835–1910), geologist and zoologist
- Louis Agassiz (1807–1873), zoologist, glaciologist, and geologist, the husband of educator Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz, and one of the first world-class American scientists[29]
- Berni Alder (1925- ), physicist
- David Alter (1807–1881), inventor, almost discovered spectroscopy
- Othmar Ammann (1879–1965), civil engineer[30]
- Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier (1840–1914), archeologist
- Felix Bloch (1905–1983), physicist[31]
- Armand Borel (1923–2003), mathematician
- Florian Cajori (1859–1930), mathematician[32]
- Hans R. Camenzind (1934-2012), inventor of the 555 timer IC
- Albert Einstein (1879–1955), theoretical physicist widely regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century and one of the greatest physicists of all time[33]
- Edmond H. Fischer (1920- ), biochemist[34]
- Walter Gautschi (1927- ), mathematician
- Otto Frederick Hunziker (1873–1959), dairy educator and technologist
- Josias Joesler (1895–1927), architect
- John Kruesi (1843–1899), inventor and close associate of Thomas Edison
- Adolf Meyer (1866–1950), psychiatrist[35]
- Jean Piccard (1884–1963), scientist and high-altitude balloonist
- Louis François de Pourtalès (1824–80), naturalist
- Max Theiler (1899–1972), virologist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing a vaccine against yellow fever
- Robert Julius Trumpler (1886–1956), astronomer
- Etienne Wenger (1952- ), educational researcher
- Orville and Wilbur Wright, Orville (1871-1948) and Wilbur (1867-1912), aviation pioneers, inventors
- Fritz Zwicky (1898–1974), astronomer
Sports
- Martin Buser (1958- ), champion of sled dog racing[36]
- Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941), racing driver; founder of the Chevrolet Motor Car Company, now the most famous brand of General Motors[37]
- Bobby Fischer (1943–2008), controversial world chess champion
- William "Pudge" Heffelfinger (1867–1954), first professional football player[38]
- Jeff Hostetler (1961- ), quarterback in the NFL for the New York Giants, Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, and Washington Redskins.
- Fred Merkle (1888–1956), baseball player
- Ben Roethlisberger (1982- ), quarterback in the NFL for the Pittsburgh Steelers[39]
- Rudolph "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone (1913–1996), perhaps the best known pool player in the United States[40]
- Ben Zobrist - second baseman in Major League Baseball[41]
Other
- Henry Bouquet - prominent Army officer in the French and Indian War and Pontiac's War[42]
- Mary Katherine Campbell (1905-1990), only Miss America winner to hold beauty title twice, 1922 & 1923; mother was of partial Swiss ancestry[43]
- Gary Gygax (1938–2008), writer and game designer, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons
- Helen Keller (1880–1968), author, political activist and lecturer; first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree
- Christoph Meili (1968- ), whistleblower[44]
- Chesley Sullenberger (1951- ), airline transport pilot who successfully carried out the emergency ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, saving the lives of the 155 people on the aircraft[45]
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ [1] "Portfolio's Worst American CEOs of All Time." CNBC.com April 30, 2009.
- ↑ [2] "Meyer, though a native speaker of German, was Swiss-German."
- ↑ http://www.nndb.com/people/755/000160275/
- ↑ [3] "The legendary Swiss manager has been tasked with bringing fresh momentum to the sputtering engine of the world's largest automobile group."
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Swiss Roots: Renee Zellweger
- ↑ [4] "The actress, who's Alaskan/Swiss on her mother's side, was born in Schweigmatt, Germany."[5]
- ↑ [6] "His father had mainly Swiss and British roots."
- ↑ Swiss Roots: Film
- ↑ [7] "...and my mother is Swiss and Swede."
- ↑ Biography for William Wyler at the Internet Movie Database "Born Willi Wyler ... to a Swiss father and a German mother"
- ↑ Swiss Roots: Jewel Kilcher
- ↑ Swiss Roots: Herbert Hoover
- ↑ [8]
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 [9] "Swiss ancestry."
- ↑ [10]
- ↑ [11] "Ethnicity Swiss/German"
- ↑ [12] "Born to an aristocratic Swiss family, Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) emigrated from Switzerland to America in 1780."
- ↑ [13] "Swiss and German ancestry."
- ↑ Robert Parkinson, Peter Staub. Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, 2002. Retrieved: 5 August 2010.
- ↑ toledoblade.com - Blade's man in Europe brought world to Toledo
- ↑ Mueller Science - Specialities: Switzerland
- ↑ [14] "Though Swiss by birth, Frank traveled the world before settling in the United States in 1953."
- ↑ Swiss Roots: Eddie Rickenbacker
- ↑ [15] "German-born Swiss pioneer settler and colonizer in California; the discovery of gold on his land in 1848 precipitated the California Gold Rush."
- ↑ [16] mentioned as one of several "Swiss Americans"
- ↑ Swiss Roots: Henry Wirz
- ↑ New Georgia Encyclopedia: John J. Zubly (1724-1781)
- ↑ Louis Agassiz - Britannica Student Encyclopaedia
- ↑ (German) Structurae [en]: Othmar Herrmann Ammann (1879-1965)
- ↑ CERN Scientific Information Service
- ↑ NOAA Central Library
- ↑ [17] "After his graduation in the spring of 1900, he became a Swiss citizen, worked for two months as a mathematics teacher, and then was employed as examiner at the Swiss patent office in Bern."
- ↑ Edmond Fischer
- ↑ [18] "Swiss-born U.S. psychiatrist"
- ↑ [19] "Martin Buser, a long-time Swiss citizen, is scheduled to be sworn in today as a United States citizen by Judge Ben Esch after crossing the finish line yesterday as winner of the 2002 Iditarod."
- ↑ [20]
- ↑ de:William Heffelfinger
- ↑ [21] "Swiss Roots: How much do you know about your Swiss heritage? Ben Roethlisberger: Honestly, I didn't know a whole lot until recently; then I started feeling it out a little more and hearing a little more about it. Now, when people ask me where I'm from, I'm quick to say, "Well, I'm Swiss." I'm sure I have a lot of things in me, but that's one of the things I tell people—that I'm Swiss."
- ↑ [22] "The Wanderones were German-Swiss"
- ↑ [23] "Zobrist Name Meaning Swiss German: topographic name for someone who lived at the highest or furthest point of a settlement."
- ↑ [24] "Bouqet as a free born Switzer..."
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ [25] "the name of the 30-year-old former Swiss bank guard is already being entered into the ranks of the righteous gentiles -- those persons who have taken risks to help Jews."
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.