Iowa - Iowans

Iowans

Iowa was the birthplace of U.S. President Herbert Hoover, Vice President Henry A. Wallace, and two first ladies, Lou Henry Hoover and Mamie Eisenhower. Other national leaders who lived in Iowa include President Ronald Reagan, John L. Lewis, Harry Hopkins, Carrie Chapman Catt, Jefferson Davis, Chief Black Hawk, and John Brown.

Five Nobel Prize winners hail from Iowa: Norman Borlaug, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize; Thomas Cech, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Alan J. Heeger, also a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; John Mott, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize; and Stanley B. Prusiner, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Other notable scientists who worked or were born in Iowa include astronomer and space pioneer James A. Van Allen, ecologist Aldo Leopold, computer pioneer John Vincent Atanasoff, inventor and plant scientist George Washington Carver, geochemist Clair Cameron Patterson, and Intel founder Robert Noyce.

Notable writers, artists, and news personalities from Iowa include Bill Bryson, Corey Taylor, George Gallup, Susan Glaspell, Harry Reasoner, Phil Stong, Grant Wood and TG Boleyn.

Entertainers from Iowa include Tom Arnold, Bix Beiderbecke, Johnny Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody, Simon Estes, William Frawley, Ashton Kutcher, Cloris Leachman, Glenn Miller, Donna Reed, Brandon Routh, John Wayne, Andy Williams, Meredith Willson, Michael Mosley and Elijah Wood.

Many athletes from Iowa have become famous enough to be noted in the List of people from Iowa. Iowan athletes winning Olympic gold medals are Tom Brands, Jay Clark, Chuck Darling, Dan Gable, Shawn Johnson, Edward Lindberg, Allie Morrison, George Saling, Cael Sanderson, Kenneth Sitzberger, and Frank Wykoff. Iowan athletes inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame are Cap Anson, Fred Clarke, and Bob Feller. In college football Jay Berwanger was the first winner of the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy in 1935 which was later renamed the Heisman Trophy which Nile Kinnick won in 1939. In professional football Kurt Warner was the Super Bowl XXXIV MVP winner and 2 time NFL MVP award winner. Frank Gotch was a World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion and Zach Johnson won the 2007 Masters Golf Tournament. Iowan native Jeremy Hellickson won the 2011 American League Rookie of the Year award pitching for the Tampa Bay Rays.

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