The 250 Greatest Columbia Alumni: 1-10

In celebration of the University's 250th anniversary, Spectator ranked the 250 greatest Columbians through the ages, from number 250 to number 1. The project began on Oct. 17, 2003 with the 250th alum, Chet Forte, CC 1957. Today, we reveal the single most influential alum and the rest of the top 10.

1. John Jay, King's College 1764

Judge, statesman, and abolitionist, Jay was the greatest of Columbia's trio of founding fathers--and the greatest alumnus in the University's history. Once a vehement opponent of independence from England who declined to sign the Declaration of Independence, Jay later became a strong supporter of the revolution and an instrumental architect of the new nation. Along with John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, he helped negotiate the peace treaty that ended the Revolutionary War. Then, with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, King's College 1774-1776, he authored The Fedaralist Papers, foundational documents of American government. He became the first chief justice of the United States, and also served as the secretary of foreign affairs, the governor of New York, and a founder of the American Episcopal church. An ardent abolitionist, Jay participated in anti-slavery causes throughout his life. He also played a major role in the creation of New York's government, writing the state constitution. At Columbia, he is memorialized by the John Jay Award, the John Jay Scholars program, and John Jay residence hall. In American government, he is memorialized by his enduring contributions to representative democracy.

2. Gouverneur Morris, King's College 1768

The least heralded of Columbia's great trio of founding fathers, Morris came from a family of Loyalists but he nonetheless fought against Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, despite having lost a leg in a carriage accident as a boy. He emerged as one of the leaders at the Constitutional Convention, giving the most speeches of any delegate and calling for a strong national government. It is Morris who is credited with writing most of the U.S. Constitution in its final form: he reduced the 23 articles in the original draft to seven, and he added the preamble, with its famous opening phrase, "We the people." Morris later served as a diplomat to England and France and then as a U.S. senator, but he lost his reelection bid because he was a steadfast Federalist. Morris also chaired the commission that built the Erie Canal, and he made New York City what it is today when he designed Manhattan's 12-avenue, 155-street grid north of Houston Street.

3. Alexander Hamilton, King's College 1774-1776

From his early days at King's College, Hamilton was intimately involved in the American Revolution. As a student, he enlisted in the militia, where his leadership abilities caught the eye of General George Washington. By time the war was over, he was known as a leading political figure in the new nation. At the Continental Congress in 1782 and the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Hamilton spoke out against the Articles of Confederation and argued for a powerful central government, even proposing that the president serve a lifetime term. He also co-wrote The Federalist Papers with Madison and Jay. But Hamilton's most important legacy was as the first secretary of the treasury, when his theories of taxation, commerce, and the national debt--and his successful advocacy of a national bank--laid the groundwork for the American economic system. In 1784, he and Jay helped revive King's College as Columbia College. In 1804, Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr after he opposed Burr's campaign for president.

4. Margaret Mead, BC 1923

The inventor of modern anthropology, Mead brought her field to the general public and popularized the study of human behavior. After doing her first field work in American Samoa, focusing on adolescent sexuality, she wrote Coming of Age in Samoa, which became a national bestseller. The book advanced the revolutionary theory that cultural expectations affect the development of individuals. In subsequent field work in New Guinea, Mead pioneered other theories of cultural development, including the idea that gender roles are based on culture as well as biology, and the idea that cultural patterns like racism and war are learned. Mead successfully broke down the dichotomy between "civilized" and "primitive" people, and she fought for the inclusion of women and children in anthropological study. Later in life, she founded the Institute for Intercultural Studies, the first organization to use anthropological techniques to study contemporary culture.

5. Roone Arledge, CC 1952

A 1990 Sports Illustrated magazine ranking of the 40 most influential figures in sports history placed Arledge third--behind only Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan. He created sports television as we know it, and also had a profound effect on news broadcasting. As the vice president of ABC Sports, he created ABC's Wide World of Sports, the longest running and most successful sports program ever. He was then promoted to president of the sports division, where he served for nearly 20 years and created Monday Night Football. He also produced television coverage of 10 Olympic Games and pioneered many new techniques for showing the human side of sports. As the president of ABC News, Arledge created many news programming mainstays, including 20/20, World News Tonight, and Nightline. A University trustee until his death in 2002, Arledge is one of Columbia's most beloved contemporary alumni.

6. Martha Stewart, BC 1963

"When America wants to learn how to make the perfect piecrust, grow an herb garden, create a beautiful flower arrangement, or fix a broken windowpane," Stewart's official biography reads, "it turns to Martha Stewart."

But beyond flower arrangements, Stewart's skills as an entrepeneur have yielded an Emmy Award-winning television show, a website, several bestselling books, a national radio show and newspaper column, a mail-order catalog, an award-winning magazine, and a product line. In creating her empire, Stewart has become the single most successful businesswoman in American history. She became a professional model after college, then got her business training as a stockbroker. She began her television show in the early 1990s and soon became one of the most recognizable faces in American culture and one of the nation's most powerful businesspeople. She was convicted on four counts by a federal judge in March 2004 in connection with an internal trading investigation, and is awaiting sentencing and possible jail time.

7. Langston Hughes, School of Mines 1921-1922

Hughes entered the engineering school at the urging of his father, who did not believe his son could make a living as a writer. But Hughes dropped out after just a year in order to pursue his poetry. In 1926 he published his first collection of poetry, The Weary Blues, and the next year he graduated from Lincoln University. He was one of the founders of the Harlem Renaissance, and his writings reflected the culture of Harlem and African Americans mixed with stories of his personal struggles. One of America's most influential writers, he became known as "The Poet Laureate of the Negro Race." He also authored several plays, and his Mulatto was the longest running Broadway show until Lorraine Hansberry's legendary A Raisin in the Sun.

8. Jack Kerouac, CC 1940-1942

Though he entered Columbia on a football scholarship, Kerouac played in only a few games before breaking his leg during his first year. A disagreement with the coach the next fall drove him to quit the team and drop out of school, where he had received the only A in Mark Van Doren's Shakespeare class but had failed chemisty. But he continued to hang out at Columbia, making friends with students Lucien Carr, CC 1934-1935 and Allen Ginsberg, CC 1948. Together, they began the Beat Generation, a phrase invented by Kerouac in describing his "beatness" or weariness with life. After several cross country trips with friends, Kerouac wrote On the Road, his most famous novel. He was unhappy with fame and sunk into alcoholism and depression, which he would struggle with for the rest of his life.

9. Zora Neale Hurston, BC 1928

When Hurston came to Barnard in 1925 on a scholarship provided by Annie Nathan Meyer, the school's founder, she was its first African-American student. She studied anthropology under Franz Boaz, and throughout her life, she combined her studies of culture with her talents as a writer to produce groundbreaking novels about the black community. Hurston was a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a movement that affirmed the existence of black culture independent from white society. Hurston's novels--especially her masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God--were controversial because they did not conform to stereotypical black stories. Although she fervently believed that blacks could achieve independence from whites, she never addressed white racism in her novels and she spoke out against the civil rights movement. As a result, Hurston's influence faded until the 1970s, when Alice Walker rediscovered her work and spurred a broad re-appreciation of her legacy.

10. Federico García Lorca, GS 1929

García Lorca was one of the most talented and beloved literary figures in Spain's history. He was a poet and playwright who was able to conflate the two genres, producing a form of poetry for the stage. In Madrid, he became friends with the painter Salvadore Dali, the filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and the poet Rafael Alberti--a group that would become known as Generacion del 27. García Lorca was an experimental poet who combined aspects of folklore with Surrealism and often dealt with dark and mystical themes. Among his most important books of poetry are Romancero Gitano (or The Gypsy Poems) and Poeta in Nueva York (or Poet in New York), the latter of which he wrote while studying at Columbia. As a dramatist, he is best-known for his dark tragedies that challenge realism. Many of his plays had left-wing social implications, which made García Lorca a controversial figure. In 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, he was murdered by Franco's Nationalists, who considered intellectuals dangerous. García Lorca's death made him a national sensation in Spain.