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1 results

  • 1 - The Economics of American Greatness

  • Zev Eleff, Gratz College
  • Book:
    The Greatest of All Time
    Published online:
    23 January 2025
    Print publication:
    06 March 2025, pp 10-46

  • Summary

    This chapter studies the first Hall of Fame established in the United States: NYU’s Hall of Fame of Great Americans in 1900. The episode shines a light on the American conception of greatness and how that relates to fame. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States faced an “inflation” of fame while greatness became a scarce resource. To understand the complex differences between greatness and fame, this chapter’s narrative weaves together the European tradition of status, the seedy transatlantic history of eugenics, and the unusual Hall of Fame candidacy of Edgar Allan Poe.