Welcome to American National Biography Online
The life of a nation is told by the lives of its people
- Over 19,000 biographies of significant, influential or notorious figures from American history written by prominent scholars
- Learn about our editors and the Letter from the General Editor Miroslava Chávez-García.
Featured
Vivian Maier
Vivian Maier (1926–2009) spent her life traveling the world as a nanny and shooting thousands of photos. She was 81 years old when the contents of her storage lockers were auctioned due to unpaid rent. Among the items were more than one hundred thousand negatives, prints, and color slides; hundreds of reels of motion picture footage; and more than one thousand rolls of undeveloped film. Within months of the November 2007 auctions, Maier’s photography began appearing on the internet, making her a star street photographer.
Featured
André Previn
André Previn (1929–2019) was a remarkably prolific orchestral conductor, composer, film scorer, and jazz pianist. He was often compared to Leonard Bernstein for his output, eclectic tastes and talents, flamboyant personality, and seemingly inexhaustible energy. The winner of ten Grammys and four Oscars, Previn was a presence in American popular culture for more than four decades.
The April 2025 update of the American National Biography features twelve new articles.
