Famous History Majors

A quick gander at the long list of notable history majors makes clear that the potential career opportunities for history majors and minors is limited only by the number of existing careers!

Politicians/Public Servants

John F. Kennedy: U. S. President
Richard Nixon: U.S. President
Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson: Former First Lady
Gordon Brown: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Anthony M. Kennedy: U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia: Supreme Court Justice
George Mitchell: Former U.S. Senator; special envoy to the Middle East
Bill Bradley: Former U.S. Senator; professional basketball player
Max Cleland: U. S. Senator
Orrin Hatch: U. S. Senator
Newt Gingrich: Former Speaker of the House
Tim Johnson: U. S. Congressman
John E. Baldacci: Governor of Maine
Eric Holder: 82nd Attorney General of the United States
A. Elizabeth Jones: Former U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan
Betsy McCaughey: 72nd Lieutenant Governor of New York
Marilyn McAfee: Former U. S. Ambassador to Guatemala
William J. Lynn: Deputy Secretary of Defense
William R. Steiger: Director of the U. S. Department of Health Human Service’s Office of Global Affairs
J. Stapleton Roy: Ambassador; Director of the Kissinger Institute for Chinese-US Scholars

Actor/Director/Comedian/Songwriter

Katharine Hepburn: Academy award-winning actress
Sacha Baron Cohen: Comedian; writer; star of “The Ali G Show” and “Borat”
Larry David: Actor; writer; comedian; producer; film director; co-creator of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”
Edward Norton: Actor
Conan O’Brien: Host of “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien”
Steve Carell: Comedian; star of “The Office”
Christopher Meloni: Emmy-nominated actor; star of “Law & Order: SVU” and “Oz”
Dean Cain: Actor; star of “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”
Jimmy Buffett: Songwriter; singer; restaurant-chain owner; businessman
Julia Child: Chef; author; television personality; host of “The French Chef”; author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Brian Dennehy: Actor; writer; director; film producer
Will Forte: Actor; comedian; writer; star of “Saturday Night Live”
Janeane Garofalo: Comedian; actress; political activist
Josh Kear: Songwriter; 2007 winner of the CMA’s Single of the Year Award
Julie White: Tony Award-winning actress

News Media/Entertainment

Charlie Rose: Host of “Charlie Rose”
Bill O’Reilly: Political commentator; host of “The O’Reilly Factor”
Seymour Hersh: Pulizer prize-winning journalist
Wolf Blitzer: Journalist
David Brancaccio: Host of PBS’s “Now”
Ray Suarez: Senior correspondent for PBS’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer”
Andrés Martinez: Editor, Los Angeles Times
Samantha Power: Journalist; political advisor; winner of 2003 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
John Schwartz: Science reporter, New York Times
Peter Sarsgaard: Actor
Joseph H. Adler: Television legal commentator; law professor
Tony Horwitz: Journalist; author of Confederates in the Attic and Baghdad Without a Map
Chris “Boomer” Berman: Anchor of “SportsCenter,” “Monday Night Countdown,” and “Baseball Tonight”
Max Boot: Journalist; editor; Senior Fellow, Council of Foreign Relations
Tucker Carlson: Former host of CNN’s “Crossfire”; senior fellow at the Cato Institute
Kimberly Kelleher: Vice President and Publisher, SELF Magazine
Sean Astin: Actor; director; producer
Robert Johnson: Founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Ira Stoll: Former vice president and manager of The New York Sun; author of Samuel Adams: A Life
Milton Viorst: Journalist; Middle-East specialist
Errol Morris: Documentary filmmaker
Michael Sragow: Film critic
Eric Stange: Documentary filmmaker and producer

Authors

Annie Proulx: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award
Ayn Rand: Novelist; philosopher; playwright
Fran Baker: Romance novelist
Rick Bayan: Webmaster; author of Words That Sell and The Cynic’s Dictionary
Tom Becker: Children’s author; winner of the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize
Jessica Bird: Author of romance novels; author of paranormal romance novels (as J. R. Ward)
Ian Caldwell: Novelist
Barbara Cooney: Children’s book author and illustrator; multiple winner of the Caldecott Medal
Anthony Doerr: Fiction writer
Laura Anne Gilman: Fantasy writer; author of the Cosa Nostradamus series
Malcolm Gladwell: Journalist and author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers
Annette Gordon-Reed: 2008 winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction
Irving Kristol: Conservative author, editor; 2002 winner of the Medal of Freedom
Jim Leisy: Photographer; book editor; publisher
Gail Z. Martin: Fantasy writer; author of The Chronicles of The Necromancer
Valentine Moghadam: Scholar; activist; author of Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks
Sharon Kay Penman: Historical novelist
Magali García Ramis: Fiction writer; journalist; essayist

Business

Lee Iococca: Former CEO of the Chrysler Corporation
Chelsea Clinton: Former First Daughter; hedge-fund manager
Chris Hughes: Founder of Facebook
Donna Dubinsky: CEO of Palm, Inc.; developed the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
Carly Fiorina: Former president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard
Richard B. Fisher: Former chairman of Morgan Stanley
Michael Flaherty: Co-founder and president of Walden Media
Robert Fogel: Winner of the 1993 Nobel Memorial in Economic Sciences
Charles L. Hill: CEO of Veritas et Lux; commentator; president of the Boston Society of Security Analysts
David Willis: Film producer; president of the Ixnay Pix production company
Martha Stewart: Media mogul
Howard Stringer: Chairman and CEO of the Sony Corporation
Harvey Mackay: Best-selling business author; founder and CEO of Mackay Envelope Corporation
Wendy P. McCaw: Owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press
Clemson Smith Muñiz: Founder, president of Smith Muñiz Productions, Spanish-language sports media company
Samuel J. Palmisano: Chief Executive Officer of IBM
Jim Rogers: Founder of the Quantum Fund; creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index
Charles Sennott: Journalist; co-founder and vice president of Global News
Ben Silverman: Co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal Television Studio

The arts, sciences, laboratory, funny pages, and more

J. Carter Brown: Former director, National Gallery of Art
Louis R. Caplan: Neurology professor; physician
Juan Cole: Middle East scholar; professor; public intellectual
Kevin Fagan: Cartoonist; created of the syndicated strip “Drabble”
Elena Kagan: First female dean of Harvard University Law School
Flo Steinberg: Pioneer publisher of underground comic books
Frank Stella: Painter; printmaker
Franklin S. Odo: Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Asia Pacific American Program
David L. Pulver: Freelance writer; video-game designer
Pat Robertson: Televangelist
Josh Sawyer: Designer of role-playing video games

List compiled by:
Catherine M. Burns
Department of History
University of Wisconsin—Madiso