In 2006, the Atlantic Monthly, the traditional spokesman for WASP progressivism, posted an interesting list of a survey of the 100 most influential individuals in American history, according to a survey of 10 prominent American historians spearheaded by the young but fairminded Catholic conservative Ross Douthat.
As I’ve often mentioned, I love exploiting lists chosen by other people for my own purposes. The most striking aspect of The Atlantic’s list is how much it is dominated by white male Protestants: The top 10 consists of Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, FDR, Hamilton, Franklin, Marshall, MLK, Edison, and Wilson: 9 WASPs and and one extremely Protestant black.
Overall, their top ten is dominated by Protestant white males and, to a lesser extent is the rest of their lists.
They only nominate seven Jews (Einstein, Salk, Oppenheimer, Gompers, Friedan, Lippman, and Goldwyn) four or five Catholics (James Gordon Bennett, Babe Ruth, Louis Armstrong, Enrico Fermi, and perhaps Ralph Nader), nine women (Stanton, Anthony, Carson, Stowe, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sanger, Friedan, Mead, and Eddy), eight blacks (MLK, Jackie Robinson, DuBois, Douglass, Louis Armstrong, Thurgood Marshall, Nat Turner, Booker T. Washington), zero Hispanics, two Mormons (Smith and Young), and one Arab (Nader).
And most of the Diverse are well down in the rankings.
So about two thirds of the top 100 most influential Americans, according to The Atlantic in 2006 were white American Protestant males. And keep in mind that despite Ross’s leadership, the poll reflects The Atlantic’s usual progressive bias. For example, John C. Calhoun at # 58 is the only reactionary picked for the sake of being reactionary.
And if you weight the results by ranking, the results are overwhelmingly pro-WASP.
The Atlantic would choose George Floyd, Ibram X Kendi, and Claudine Gay if they compiled the rankings today.