List of Famous people born in Pennsylvania, United States of America
Raymond Pace Alexander
Raymond Pace Alexander was an American civil rights leader, lawyer, politician, and the first African American judge appointed to the Pennsylvania courts of common pleas.
Abby Huntsman
Abigail Haight Huntsman is an American journalist and television personality. The daughter of former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. and Mary Kaye Huntsman, Huntsman rose to prominence as a host on MSNBC and NBC News. She then became a general assignment reporter for Fox News Channel and later a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend. Huntsman co-hosted the ABC talk show The View from September 2018 to January 2020.
Megan Brennan
Megan Jane Brennan served as the seventy-fourth Postmaster General of the United States. Brennan became the first woman to hold the office when she assumed the position on February 1, 2015.
Betsy Ross
Elizabeth Griscom Ross, also known by her second and third married names, Ashburn and Claypoole, was an American upholsterer who was credited by her relatives in 1870 with making the first American flag, accordingly known as the Betsy Ross flag. Though most historians dismiss the story, Ross family tradition holds that General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and two members of a congressional committee—Robert Morris and George Ross—visited Mrs. Ross in 1776. Mrs. Ross convinced George Washington to change the shape of the stars in a sketch of a flag he showed her from six-pointed to five-pointed by demonstrating that it was easier and speedier to cut the latter. However, there is no archival evidence or other recorded verbal tradition to substantiate this story of the first American flag. It appears that the story first surfaced in the writings of her grandson in the 1870s, with no mention or documentation in earlier decades.
Barry Alvarez
Barry Lee Alvarez is a former American football coach who is currently the athletic director at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He served as the head football coach at Wisconsin for 16 seasons, from 1990 to 2005, compiling a career college football record of 119–72–4. He has the longest head coaching tenure and the most wins in Wisconsin Badgers football history. Alvarez stepped down as head coach after the 2005 season, remaining as athletics director.
Robert Bork
Robert Heron Bork was an American judge, government official, and legal scholar who served as the Solicitor General of the United States from 1973 to 1977. A professor at Yale Law School by occupation, he later served as a judge on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the U.S. Senate rejected his nomination.
Kermit Gosnell
Kermit Barron Gosnell is an American former physician abortionist convicted of murdering three infants who were born alive during attempted abortion procedures; he was also convicted of involuntary manslaughter of one woman during an abortion procedure.
Dawn Staley
Dawn Michelle Staley is an American basketball Hall of Fame player and coach. Staley is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and was elected to carry the United States flag at the opening ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics. After playing point guard for the University of Virginia under Debbie Ryan, and winning the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics, she went to play professionally in the American Basketball League and the WNBA. In 2011, Staley was voted in by fans as one of the Top 15 players in WNBA history. Staley was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012. She was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.
Mike Ditka
Michael Keller Ditka is an American former football player, coach, and television commentator. A member of both the College (1986) and the Pro (1988) Football Halls of Fame, he was UPI NFL Rookie of Year in 1961, a five-time Pro Bowl selection, and a six-time All-Pro tight end with the National Football League's Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys.
Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest Paul is an American author, physician, and retired politician who served as the U.S. Representative for Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977 and again from 1979 to 1985, and for Texas's 14th congressional district from 1997 to 2013. On three occasions, he sought the presidency of the United States: as the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988 and as a candidate in the Republican primaries of 2008 and 2012. A self-described constitutionalist, Paul is a critic of the federal government's fiscal policies, especially the existence of the Federal Reserve and the tax policy, as well as the military–industrial complex, the war on drugs, and the war on terror. He has also been a vocal critic of mass surveillance policies such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the NSA surveillance programs. He was the first chairman of the conservative PAC Citizens for a Sound Economy, a free-market group focused on limited government, and has been characterized as the "intellectual godfather" of the Tea Party movement, a fiscally conservative political movement that is largely against most matters of interventionism.