# The 23 Greatest American Innovators of All Time

> Lightning rods and light bulbs share a bracket with compilers, airplanes and smartphones. Workshop tinkerers face off against boardroom visionaries across three centuries.

*By YPB Team · Published October 30, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-23-greatest-american-innovators-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Thomas Edison** — score 1000/1000
   Prolific inventor behind the practical light bulb, the phonograph and the first industrial research lab.
2. **Willis Carrier** — score 833/1000
   Engineer who invented modern air conditioning in 1902.
3. **Eli Whitney** — score 833/1000
   Inventor of the cotton gin and an early champion of interchangeable parts.
4. **Walt Disney** — score 625/1000
   Animation pioneer who made the first feature-length cel-animated film and invented the modern theme park.
5. **George Washington Carver** — score 625/1000
   Agricultural scientist who developed hundreds of uses for peanuts and promoted crop rotation.
6. **Robert Fulton** — score 625/1000
   Engineer who built the first commercially successful steamboat, the Clermont.
7. **Steve Jobs** — score 566/1000
   Apple co-founder who brought the personal computer, the iPod and the iPhone to the mass market.
8. **Nikola Tesla** — score 566/1000
   Serbian-American engineer whose alternating-current system powers the modern electric grid.
9. **Samuel Morse** — score 500/1000
   Painter turned inventor who co-developed the electric telegraph and Morse code.
10. **Grace Hopper** — score 423/1000
   Navy rear admiral and computer scientist who built the first compiler and shaped COBOL.
11. **Henry Ford** — score 423/1000
   Industrialist who made the car affordable with the Model T and the moving assembly line.
12. **George Westinghouse** — score 333/1000
   Inventor of the railway air brake who backed alternating current against Edison.
13. **George Eastman** — score 333/1000
   Kodak founder who brought roll film and the simple box camera to the public.
14. **Elon Musk** — score 333/1000
   Entrepreneur behind Tesla's mass-market electric cars and SpaceX's reusable rockets.
15. **Steve Wozniak** — score 333/1000
   Apple co-founder who single-handedly designed the Apple I and Apple II computers.
16. **Bill Gates** — score 333/1000
   Microsoft co-founder whose software put a computer on nearly every desk.
17. **Benjamin Franklin** — score 333/1000
   Founding Father and scientist who invented the lightning rod, bifocals and the Franklin stove.
18. **Wright Brothers** — score 333/1000
   Orville and Wilbur Wright, who made the first powered, controlled airplane flight in 1903.
19. **Cyrus McCormick** — score 333/1000
   Inventor of the mechanical reaper that transformed grain farming.
20. **Edwin Land** — score 333/1000
   Polaroid co-founder who invented instant photography and polarizing filters.
21. **Hedy Lamarr** — score 227/1000
   Hollywood star who co-invented frequency-hopping technology later used in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
22. **Philo Farnsworth** — score 227/1000
   Inventor of the first fully electronic television system.
23. **Alexander Graham Bell** — score 0/1000
   Scottish-born American inventor credited with patenting the first practical telephone.

Tags: historical figures, usa, science, inventors, innovators