Stories About People (Biographies)
Text & MP3 Files

A Few That Were Difficult to Sort

• Johnny Appleseed - He Planted Many Apple Trees
• Red Adair - Famous for Putting Out Dangerous Oil Well Fires
• Robert Edison Fulton - Rode Around the World on a Motorcycle
• Thurgood Marshall - The First African American to Serve on the US Supreme Court

Activists & People Important to Social Reform

• Betty Friedan - Women's Rights
• Cesar Chavez - Labor Activist
• Frederick Douglass - African-Americans's Rights
• Jane Jacobs - Activist, Writer, Moral Thinker And Economist
• Labor Leaders: Samuel Gompers, John L. Lewis, Walter Reuther, A. Philip Randolph, and Cesar Chavez
• Margaret Sanger - Led the Fight for Birth Control for Women
• Martin Luther King, Jr. - Part 1- African-Americans's Rights
• Martin Luther King, Jr. - Part 2
• Rosa Parks - - African-Americans's Rights
• Samuel Gompers - 'The Grand Old Man of Labor'
• Susan B. Anthony - Women's Rights
• W.E.B. Du Bois- African-Americans's Rights
• Note: Many people listed in other categories were also activists.

Artists

• Andy Warhol
• Diane Arbus - Photographer
• Edward Hopper - Painter
• Edward Weston - Photographer
• George Catlin - Part 1 - Painter
• George Catlin - Part-2 - Painter
• Georgia O'Keefe - Painter
• Isabella Stewart Gardner - Art Collector and Cultural Supporter
• Jackson Pollock - Painter
• Mary Cassatt - Painter
• Robert Rauschenberg
• Winslow Homer - Painter

Athletes (People Who Do Sports)

• Babe Ruth - Baseball
• Arthur Ashe - Tennis
• Jackie Robinson - Baseball
• Kay Yow and Betty Jameson - Founders Of Women's Sports Organizations
• Lou Gehrig - Baseball
• Jesse Owens - Runner
• Roberto Clemente - Baseball
• Wilma Rudolph - The First American Woman to Win Three Gold Medals in One Olympics

Business & Industry

• Henry Ford - Part 1 - Automobiles / Cars
• Henry Ford - Part 2
• Katharine Graham - Owner and Publisher of The Washington Post
• Madam C.J. Walker - Hair-Care Products
• Mary Kay Ash - Cosmetics
• Milton Hershey - Candy Company
• Ray Kroc - McDonald's.
• William Randolph Hearst - Newspaper Business

Entertainers

• Annie Oakley - Sharp Shooter
• Billy Wilder - Movie Director
• Bob Hope - Comedian
• Charlton Heston - Actor
• Eartha Kitt - Singer and Actress
• Edward R. Murrow - Radio and TV Broadcaster
• Fred Astaire - Dancer and Actor
• Gene Kelly - Dancer and Actor
• George Abbott - "Mr. Broadway"
• Hollywood: Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn and Louis Mayer
• Jack Benny - Comedian
• James Stewart - Actor
• Jessica Tandy - Actress
• Katharine Hepburn - Actress
• Lucille Ball - Actress and Comedian
• Mae West - Actress
• Marilyn Monroe - Actress
• Marlon Brando - Actor
• Martha Graham - The Mother of Modern Dance
• The Marx Brothers - Actors and Comedians
• Milton Berle - Actor
• Paul Newman - Actor
• Sydney Pollack - Movie Director And Producem
• Walt Disney
• Willis Conover - VOA Radio Program on Jazz

Health

• Clara Barton - Started the American Red Cross
• Doctor Spock - Baby and Child Care
• Elizabeth Blackwell - Doctor
• Eunice Kennedy Shriver - Creator of the Special Olympics

Inventors, Designers, Developers, ...

• Buckminster Fuller
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• James Rouse - A Developer of Shopping Malls and a Planned City
• Louis Khan - Building Designer
• Philo Farnsworth - The Father of Television
• Radio Pioneers
  Guglielmo Marconi, Lee De Forest, Edwin Armstrong, David Sarnoff, William S. Paley, Edward R. Murrow & William Shirer
• Thomas Edison
• The Wright Brothers

Journalist

• Margaret Bourke-White-1 - Photojournalist
• Margaret Bourke-White-2
• Carl Rowan - Reporter
• Henry Loomis - VOA Special English
• Ida Tarbell - Reporter
• Jacob Riis - Reporter
• Nellie Bly - Reporter

Leaders

• Douglas MacArthur - Military Leader
• Mary Lyon - A Leader in Women's Education

Musicians

• Aaron Copland - Composer
• Billie Holiday
• Beverly Sills
• Bo Diddley
• Irving Berlin
• Celia Cruz - Salsa
• Charlie Parker - Jazz
• Cole Porter- Part 1
• Cole Porter- Part 2
• Duke Ellington- Part 1
• Duke Ellington- Part 2
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Elvis Presley
• George Gershwin - Part 1 - Composer
• George Gershwin - Part 2 - Composer
• Hank Williams - Country
• Isaac Stern - Violinist
• James Brown - Soul Music
• Janis Joplin
• Jerome Kern - The Father of American Musical Theater
• John Coltrane - Jazz Saxophonist
• John Lewis - Jazz Pianist / MJQ
• Johnny Cash - Country
• Julia Ward Howe - Wrote the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
• Leonard Bernstein
• Les Paul - Guitarist
• Louis Armstrong - Jazz
• Maria Callas - Opera Singer
• Marian Anderson - Part 1 - Singer
• Marian Anderson - Part 2
• Michael Jackson
• Nina Simone
• Patsy Cline - Country Singer
• Paul Robeson - Singer And International Political Activist
• Ray Charles - Part 1
• Ray Charles - Part 2
• Richard Rodgers - Composer
• Roger Miller - Singer-Songwriter
• Sam Cooke - Singer-Songwriter
• Scott Joplin - Ragtime Composer
• Shirley Horn - Jazz
• Stephen Foster - Songwriter
• Todd Duncan - Broke a Major Color Barrier for Black Singers of Classical Music
• Woody Guthrie - Part 1 - Singer-Songwriter
• Woody Guthrie - Part 2

Native Americans / American Indians

• Cochise - Apache Chief
• Crazy Horse - A leader of the Lakota Indians
• Pocahontas - The First Native-American to Marry a White Person
• It is highly likely that there are other native Americans listed in other categories.

Old West Gunfighters

• Doc Holliday - A Famous Gunfighter
• Gunfighters - Part 1
  Luke Short, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and William Matthew Tilghman
• Gunfighters - Part 2
  James Miller and John Slaughter

Pilots

• Alan Shepard - The First American to Travel into Space
• Anne Morrow Lindbergh - Pilot & Writer
• Bessie Coleman
• Jimmy Doolittle
• Wiley Post - The First Pilot to Circle the World Alone
• Aviation Hall of Fame Members
  Harriet Quimby, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Charles Lindbergh, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Link, John Montgomery, Giuseppe Bellanca, Charles E. Taylor, Calbraith Rodgers and Jacqueline Cochran

Politicians

• Barbara Jordan
• Bella Abzug
• Davy Crockett - Hunter, Fighter, Storyteller and Elected Official
• Edward Kennedy
• Eleanor Roosevelt - Wife of a President
• Eugene McCarthy
• Franklin Roosevelt
• Lady Bird Johnson - Wife of a President
• Ronald Reagan
• Shirley Chisholm - The First Black Woman Elected to Congress

Religious Leaders

• Brigham Young

Scientists

• Albert Einstein
• Barbara McClintock
• Carl Sagan
• Charles Darwin
• Dian Fossey - Studied Gorillas
• Edward Teller - 'Father of the Hydrogen Bomb'
• Edwin Hubble - Astronomer
• Margaret Mead - Anthropologist
• Norman Borlaug - Agricultural Scientist
• Oppenheimer and Fermi - Two Developers of the First Atomic Bomb
• Percival Lowell (Planet Pluto)
• Rachel Carson - Environmental Protection Movement

Writers

• Ann Landers - Advice Columns
• Ayn Rand
• Barbara Cooney - Children's Books
• Charles Schulz - "Peanuts" Comic Strip
• Clare Booth Luce - News Reporter, Magazine Editor, Member of Congress and Ambassador
• Doctor Seuss - Children's Books
• Dorothy West
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Edith Wharton
• Emily Dickinson - Poet
• Ernest Hemingway - Part 1
• Ernest Hemingway - Part 2
• F. Scott Fitzgerald - Part 1
• F. Scott Fitzgerald - Part 2
• Flannery O'Connor
• Gwendolyn Brooks - Poet
• Helen Keller - Part 1
• Helen Keller - Part 2
• James Baldwin
• John Kenneth Galbraith - Economist, Liberal Thinker, Author, Professor, Presidential Advisor And Ambassador
• Kurt Vonnegut
• Langston Hughes - Part 1 - Poet
• Langston Hughes - Part 2
• Louisa May Alcott - Children's Books
• Mark Twain
• Ralph Ellison
• Shel Silverstein - Poet, Writer, Composer, Singer, Musician and Artist
• Susan Sontag
• Truman Capote
• Walt Whitman - Poet
• Willa Cather
• Zora Neale Hurston

Year-end Special Programs

• Some People Who Died in 2005
  Johnny Carson, Gladys Tantaquidgeon, John H. Johnson, Anne Bancroft & Shelby Foote
• Some People Who Died in 2006
  Robert Altma, Ann Richards, R.W. Apple, William Styron & Ruth Brown
• Some People Who Died in 2007
  Brooke Astor, Evel Knievel, Leona Helmsley & Max Roach
• Some People Who Died in 2008
  David Foster Wallace, Odetta, Irvine Robbins, Cyd Charisse & George Carlin

More People

• Shadow Wolves

About

• You can read the text and listen to the MP3 file.
• These will all print very cleanly (without printing the MP3 player and menu.)
• Twelve of the biographies have a "part 2," which means they are 30 minutes long.
• These are good for people studying English because they can not only listen to the stories but also read them. These are in VOA's Special English.
• The source of the original pre-edited material is http://voanews.com/specialenglish/.
  • "All text, audio and video material produced exclusively by the Voice of America
    is public domain. However, some images and graphics are licensed for use and
    covered by all applicable copyright laws."

Other VOA Material on This Web Site

• Voice of America Special English Study