Homeschooling is a modern term but it is a form of education that has been around for centuries. In fact, most children were taught at home until the push for public schools began in the 1830s-1840s. If you look at references to education before there was a public school system, you will see phrases such as “tutored at home,” “self-taught,” or “no formal education,” referring to individuals we might now call homeschooled.

My goal is to be as thorough and as accurate as possible. I would like to clarify that not everyone on the following list was homeschooled exclusively, but homeschooling was definitely a significant factor in their education at one time or another.

Constitutional Convention Delegates

• Richard Basseti – Governor of Delaware
• William Blount – U.S. Senator
• George Clymer – U.S. Representative
• William Few – U.S. Senator
• Benjamin Franklin – Inventor and Statesman
• Alexander Hamilton – Lawyer and Economist
• William Houston – Lawyer
• William S. Johnson – Columbia College President
• William Livingston – Governor of New Jersey
• James Madison – 4th President of the U.S.
• George Mason – Justice of Virginia County Court
• John Francis Mercer – U.S. Representative
• Charles Pickney III – Governor of S. Carolina
• John Rutledge – Chief Justice U.S. Supreme Court
• Richard D. Spaight – Governor of North Carolina
• George Washington – 1st President of the U.S.
• John Witherspoon – President of Princeton
• George Wythe – Justice of Virginia High Court

Presidents

• John Adams
• John Quincy Adams
• Grover Cleveland
• Jefferson Davis (the only president of the short-lived Confederate States of America)
• James Garfield
• William Henry Harrison
• Andrew Jackson
• Thomas Jefferson
• Abraham Lincoln
• James Madison
• James Polk
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• Theodore Roosevelt
• John Tyler
• George Washington
• Woodrow Wilson

Statesmen

• Henry Fountain Ashurst
• William Jennings Bryan
• Winston Churchill
• Henry Clay
• John Dickinson
• Pierre du Pont
• Benjamin Franklin
• Patrick Henry
• William Penn
• Daniel Webster

Military Officers

• John Barry – Senior Navy Officer
• George Rogers Clark – Revolutionary War hero
• Nathanael Greene – Revolutionary War hero
• Nathan Hale – Revolutionary War hero
• Stonewall Jackson – Civil War General
• John Paul Jones – Father of the American Navy
• Robert E. Lee – Civil War General
• Douglas MacArthur – U.S. General
• George Patton – U.S. General
• Matthew Perry – U.S. Naval Officer
• John Pershing – U.S. General
• David Dixon Porter – Civil War Admiral
• Joseph Bradley Varnum – Revolutionary War hero

U.S. Supreme Court Judges

• Charles Evans Hughes
• John Jay
• John Marshall
• John Rutledge
• Sandra Day O’Connor

Religious Leaders

• Joan of Arc
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• William Carey
• Jonathan Edwards
• Philipp Melancthon
• Dwight L. Moody
• John Newton
• John Owen
• Hudson Taylor
• John & Charles Wesley
• Brigham Young

Explorers

• William Clark – Lewis & Clark Expedition
• Meriwether Lewis – Lewis & Clark Expedition
• John Wesley Powell – Colorado River Expedition
• Sir Ernest Shackleton – Antarctic Expedition

Scientists

• Wilson A. Bentley – “The Snowflake Man”
• George Washington Carver – agricultural research
• Pierre Curie – discovered radium
• Albert Einstein – theoretical physicist
• Paul Erdos – Hungarian mathematician
• Michael Faraday – electrochemist
• Pierre-Gilles de Gennes – French physicist
• Oliver Heaviside – electromagnetism researcher
• T.H. Huxley – biologist, zoologist, Darwinist
• Ruth Lawrence – mathematician
• Gilbert Newton Lewis – physical chemist
• Ada Lovelace – founder of scientific computing
• Benoit Mandelbrot – pioneer in fractal geometry
• Blaise Pascal – French mathematician
• Joseph Priestley – father of modern chemistry
• Samuel C. C. Ting – Chinese American physicist
• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky – Russian rocket scientist

Inventors

• Alexander Graham Bell – invented the telephone
• John Moses Browning – firearms inventor/designer
• Peter Cooper – built the first modern skyscraper, the first commercial locomotive, and patented the first gelatin dessert which was later named Jell-O
• Thomas Edison – invented the stock ticker, mimeograph, phonograph, and electric light bulb
• Benjamin Franklin – invented the lightning rod
• Elias Howe – invented sewing machine
• William Lear – airplane creator
• Cyrus McCormick – invented grain reaper
• Guglielmo Marconi – developed radio
• Eli Whitney – invented the cotton gin
• Sir Frank Whittle – invented turbo jet engine
• Orville and Wilbur Wright – brothers who built the first successful airplane

Artists

• William Blake – painter, engraver, poet
• John Singleton Copley – American Colonial painter
• Evelyn De Morgan – Pre-Raphaelite painter
• Christian Grew – American Painter
• Donal Hord – San Diego sculptor
• Akiane Kramarik- 10-year-old art and poetry prodigy
• Claude Monet – French Impressionist
• Grandma Moses – American folk artist
• Charles Willson Peale – American portrait artist
• Lu Pinchang – ceramic sculptor
• Leonardo da Vinci – Renaissance artist, sculptor
• Andrew Wyeth – American realist painter
• Jamie Wyeth – American realist painter

Composers

• Johann Sebastian Bach – Baroque
• Irving Berlin – Patriotic
• Anton Bruckner – Symphonies
• Noel Coward – Musicals
• Felix Mendelssohn – Romantic
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Classical
• John Porcaro – Experimental
• Francis Poulenc – Choral
• John Philip Sousa – “March King”

Writers

• Louisa May Alcott – author of Little Women
• Hans Christian Anderson – fairy tale writer
• Margaret Atwood – Canadian novelist, poet
• Fawn M. Brodie – biographer
• Pearl S. Buck – Nobel prize-winning author
• William F. Buckley, Jr. – conservative writer
• Willa Cather – American novelist
• Agatha Christie – mystery author
• Samuel Clemens – a.k.a. Mark Twain
• Charles Dickens – British novelist
• Robert Frost – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman – early feminist writer
• Alex Haley – African-American novelist
• Sharlot Hall – poet, writer, Arizona historian
• Joshua Harris- pastor and author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye
• Bret Harte – frontier California journalist
• L. Ron Hubbard – science fiction writer
• Helen Keller – blind and deaf author and lecturer
• Rose Wilder Lane – journalist, ghostwriter, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder
• C.S. Lewis – Christian writer and apologist
• Amy Lowell – Modernist poet
• Gabriela Mistral – Nobel-prize winning Latin American poet
• Sean O’Casey – Irish author
• Thomas Paine – political writer during the American Revolution, author of Common Sense
• Christopher Paolini – teen author of Eragon
• Isabel Paterson – conservative political author
• Beatrix Potter – author of Peter Rabbit Tales
• Jedediah Purdy – author of For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today
• Kenneth Rexroth – poet, translator, critical essayist
• Carl Sandburg – American poet
• George Bernard Shaw – Irish-born playwright
• Mattie J. T. Stepanek – 11-year-old author of Heartsongs
• Rosemary Sutcliff – historical novels for children
• Rabindranath Tagore – Bengali poet, essayist, dramatist, songwriter
• Leo Tolstoy – Russian writer
• Mercy Warren – American Revolution eyewitness
• Phillis Wheatley – African-American poet
• Walt Whitman – American poet
• Laura Ingalls Wilder – children’s book author
• Virginia Woolf – English novelist

Educators

• Amos Bronson Alcott – innovative teacher, father of Louisa May Alcott
• Catharine Beecher – co-founder of the Hartford Female Seminary
• Jill Ker Conway – first woman president of Smith College
• Erik Demaine – associate professor of Computer Science at MIT
• Timothy Dwight – President of Yale University
• William Samuel Johnson – President of Columbia College
• Horace Mann – “Father of the American Common School”
• Charlotte Mason – Founder of Charlotte Mason College of Education
• Joyce Reed – Associate Dean of the College, Brown University
• Fred Terman – President of Stanford University
• Frank Vandiver – President of Texas A&M University
• Booker T. Washington – teacher and founder of Tuskegee Institute
• Noah Webster – “Father of American Christian Education”
• John Witherspoon – President of Princeton University

Medical Practitioners

• Clara Barton – started the Red Cross
• Elizabeth Blackwell – first woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree
• Florence Nightingale – Nurse
• Susan La Flesche Picotte – first American Indian woman physician
• Albert Schweitzer – Physician
• Mary Walker – Civil War physician; recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor

Business Entrepreneurs

• Andrew Carnegie – wealthy steel industrialist
• Amadeo Giannini – Bank of America’s founder
• Horace Greeley – New York Tribune founder
• Soichiro Honda – creator of the Honda automobile company
• Peter Kindersley – book illustrator and publisher
• Ray Kroc – founder of McDonald’s fast food restaurant chain
• Jimmy Lai – newspaper publisher; founder of Giordano International
• Dr. Orison Swett Marden – founder, Success magazine
• Adolph Ochs – New York Times founder
• Joseph Pulitzer – newspaper publisher; established Pulitzer Prize
• Colonel Harland Sanders – started Kentucky Fried Chicken
• Dave Thomas – founder of the Wendy’s restaurant chain

Performing Artists (Actors and Musicians)

• Alan Alda – actor, screenwriter, producer
• Louis Armstrong – king of jazz
• BarlowGirl – Lauren, Alyssa, and Rebecca Barlow
• Spencer Breslin – actor
• Chris Brown – R&B singer, dancer, actor
• The 5 Browns – five siblings who play classical music on five grand pianos
• Aaron Carter – Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter
• Charlie Chaplin – actor
• Cherryholmes – Bluegrass family band
• Erika Christensen – actress
• Hilary Duff – actress, singer
• Dakota Fanning – actress
• Whoopi Goldberg – actress
• Alexander Gould – actor, voice of Nemo in Finding Nemo
• Hilary Hahn – classical violin virtuoso
• Hanson – sibling singing group
• Toby Hemingway – British actor known for his role as Reid Garwin in “The Covenant”
• Jennifer Love Hewitt – actress
• Hume brothers – Jon, Peter, and Dann of the Evermore alternative rock band from New Zealand
• Tiffany Jo – Arizona yodeling star
• Jonas Brothers – Kevin, Joe, and Nick
• Nicole Jung – member of Korean girl group KARA
• Josh Layne – harp musician
• Lindsay Lohan – actress and singer
• Scott MacIntyre – visually impaired pianist
• Pat McMahon – television personality
• Jena Malone – actress
• Yehudi Menuhin – child prodigy violinist
• Alyson “Aly” Michalka and Amanda Joy “AJ” Michalka – sister singing duo and actresses
• Moffatts – Canadian version of Hanson
• Trevor Morgan – American actor
• Frankie Muniz – actor
• Hayden Panettiere – actress best known for her role as Claire Bennet in Heroes and in “Remember the Titans”
• Adam Paskowitz – lead singer, The Flys
• LeAnne Rimes – teen-prodigy country music star
• Rebecca St. James – contemporary Christian recording artist
• Lindsey Shaw – actress known for her role as Jennifer Mosely on “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide”
• Jordin Sparks – singer, actress, model and American Idol winner
• Kristen Stewart – actress
• Jeremy Sumpter – actor
• Raven Symone – actress and singer best known for her role on “That’s So Raven”
• Maria von Trapp – one of the Von Trapp Family Singers, the third child of Captain von Trapp
• Sofia Vassilieva – actress
• Kaitlyn Weaver – ice dancer
• Devon Werkheiser – actor known for the role Ned Bigby on “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide”
• Elijah Wood – actor best known as Frodo in the The Lord of the Rings
• Evan Rachel Wood – actress

Athletes

• Mike Beasley – basketball player
• Tanith Belbin – figure skating champion
• David Boudia – Olympic diver
• Chad Compton – surfer
• Alexa Glatch – tennis player
• Katie Hoff – Olympic swimmer
• Madison and Keiffer Hubbell – sibling ice dancers
• Todd Lodwick – U.S. ski team member
• Tamara McKinney – World Cup skier
• Bode Miller – American alpine skier
• Asia Muhammed – tennis player
• Carly Patterson – Olympic gymnast
• Ariel Rittenhouse – Olympic diver
• Maria Sharapova – tennis player
• Shayna Syken – figure skater
• Jason Taylor – NFL football player
• Timothy “Tim” Tebow – football player, Heisman Trophy winner
• Sam Warren – basketball player
• Venus and Serena Williams – tennis star sisters

Others

• Abigail Adams – wife of John Adams; mother of John Quincy Adams
• Ansel Adams – photographer
• Susan B. Anthony – women’s rights leader
• John James Audubon – ornithologist and artist
• Alyssa Buecker – director, Milbo Productions
• John Burroughs – naturalist
• Jennie Chancey – historical costumer
• Davy Crockett – frontiersman
• Edward Curtis – photographer
• Robin Lee Graham – youngest person to sail around the world at age 16
• Alex and Brett Harris – twin teen writers and conference speakers for “The Rebelution,” a Christian ministry/youth organization
• Eric Hoffer – social philosopher
• Sam Houston – lawyer; first leader of Texas
• Abraham Kuyper – Dutch politician, journalist
• Mary Leakey – fossil hunter
• Charles Fletcher Lummis – journalist, historian, photographer, founder of the Southwest Society
• Harriet Martineau – first woman sociologist
• Margaret Mead – cultural anthropologist
• John Stuart Mill – free-market Economist
• Charles Louis Montesquieu – philosopher
• John Muir – naturalist
• Raymond Parks – Civil Rights activist, husband of Rosa Parks
• Sofia, Susan, and Judit Polgar – chess masters
• Bill Ridell – Newspaperman
• Will Rogers – Humorist
• Eleanor Roosevelt – wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Bertrand Russell – Logician
• Drew Ryun – co-founder of Generation Joshua, director of Jim Ryun Running Camp
• Ned Ryun – co-founder of Generation Joshua, president of American Majority
• Deborah Sampson – female soldier in the American Revolution
• Emerson Spartz – 12-year-old internet entrepreneur (MuggleNet)
• Herbert Spencer – philosopher, sociologist
• Gloria Steinem – founder of Ms. magazine
• Timmy Teepell – chief of staff for Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana
• Lester Frank Ward – Father of American Sociology
• Martha Washington – wife of George Washington
• Frances E. C. Willard – educator, temperance leader, and suffragist
• Frank Lloyd Wright – architect
• John Lloyd Wright – architect, toy designer, inventor of Lincoln Logs
• Sho Yano – gifted child prodigy
• Elijah ben Solomon Zalman – Jewish scholar

This list was compiled by Compiled by Teri Ann Berg Olsen, author of “Learning for Life: Educational Words of Wisdom”
http://www.knowledgehouse.info