Who's Who of Iowa

Notable Families, Companies & People of Central Iowa

The families, companies, and famous figures of central Iowa, from Maytag and Vermeer to John Wayne, Bob Feller, and Jack Trice.

The Maytag FamilyThe Newton family behind America's washing machines, and Maytag Blue Cheese.Read profile →The Vermeer FamilyThe Pella family that reinvented haymaking with the round baler.Read profile →The Kuyper Family (Pella Corporation)The Pella family that turned a roll-up window screen into one of the country's best-known window and door makers.Read profile →The Beckwith Family (Fareway)The Boone family behind Fareway: the closed-on-Sundays, full-service Iowa grocery chain.Read profile →Musco LightingThe Oskaloosa company that lights the world's stadiums, and Olympic Games.Read profile →Josiah B. GrinnellThe abolitionist minister who founded a town and a college, and to whom Horace Greeley reputedly said, “Go West, young man.”Read profile →John Wayne“The Duke”: the Winterset-born actor who became the face of the American Western.Read profile →George GallupThe Jefferson-born University of Iowa graduate who invented modern public-opinion polling.Read profile →Mamie EisenhowerThe Boone-born First Lady at Dwight Eisenhower's side through World War II and the White House.Read profile →Bob FellerThe flame-throwing farm boy from Van Meter who went straight from an Iowa cornfield to baseball's Hall of Fame.Read profile →John L. LewisThe coal miner's son from Lucas County who became the most powerful labor leader in America.Read profile →Billy SundayThe Story County orphan who went from professional baseball to become America's most famous evangelist.Read profile →Jack TriceIowa State's first Black athlete, whose courage and sacrifice made him the namesake of the only major college stadium named for a Black man.Read profile →MacKinlay KantorThe Webster City novelist whose Civil War epic Andersonville won the Pulitzer Prize.Read profile →John Vincent AtanasoffThe Iowa State physicist who, with Clifford Berry, built the first electronic digital computer in Ames.Read profile →Kate ShelleyThe fifteen-year-old who crawled across a storm-wrecked railroad bridge to stop a passenger train, and became an Iowa legend.Read profile →Jean SebergThe Marshalltown teenager plucked from Iowa to Hollywood who became a face of the French New Wave.Read profile →James “Tama Jim” WilsonThe Tama County farmer who ran the U.S. Department of Agriculture for sixteen years: still the longest cabinet tenure in history.Read profile →George Washington CarverThe renowned agricultural scientist who earned his degrees, and broke barriers, at Iowa State in Ames.Read profile →Ada HaydenThe Ames botanist, Iowa State's first woman PhD, who fought to save Iowa's vanishing prairie.Read profile →Tom ArnoldThe Ottumwa-born comedian and actor of “True Lies” and “Roseanne.”Read profile →Simon EstesThe Centerville-born bass-baritone who broke barriers on the world's great opera stages.Read profile →
Your own family

Every family has a story in the record. We'll trace and write yours.

We only use your email to reply to you. Privacy · Terms