List of Swiss Americans

Pioneers

Theobald (Diebold) von Erlach (1541–1565), first Swiss person known to have settled in North America.

John Joachim Zubly (1724–1781) of St. Gallen, pastor, planter, and statesman during the American Revolution

John Sutter (1803–1880), born in Germany of a Swiss father, Californian famous for his association with the California Gold Rush (in that gold was discovered by James W. Marshall in Sutter's Mill) and for establishing Sutter's Fort in an area that would later become the capital of California, Sacramento

John Augustus Sutter, Jr. (1826–1897), his son, a U.S. Consul to Acapulco, Mexico and the founder and planner of the City of Sacramento, California

Peter Luginbill (1818-1886), born in France as the son of Mennonite parents exiled from the Emmental, early settler in Indiana and founder of the city of Berne

Business

Robert Abplanalp (1922–2003), businessman, inventor of the aerosol valve

Steve Ballmer (born 1956), businessman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation

Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), industrialist and art patron, once known as "America's most hated man". as per CNBC one of the "Worst American CEOs of All Time".

Meyer Guggenheim (1828–1905), statesman, patriarch of Guggenheim family

Simon Guggenheim (1867–1941), businessman, politician, and philanthropist

Milton Hershey (1857–1945), confectioner, philanthropist, and founder of The Hershey Chocolate Company

Otto Frederick Hunziker (1873–1959), pioneer in the American and international dairy industry

S. S. Kresge (1867–1966), merchant, philanthropist and founder of the S. S. Kresge Company, now Sears Holdings Corporation.

Robert Lutz (born 1932), General Motors Vice Chairman of Product Development and Chairman of GM North America, the world's largest automaker

Mark Spitznagel (born 1971), hedge fund manager

James G. Sterchi (1867–1932), furniture store magnate

Bruce Tognazzini (born 1945), usability consultant in partnership the Nielsen Norman Group

Steve Jobs, information technology entrepreneur and inventor

Actors and directors

René Murat Auberjonois (born 1940), film actor

Theda Bara (1885–1955), silent film actress and sex symbol

Wallace Beery (1885–1949), film actor

Berry Berenson (1948–2001), photographer, actress, and model, mother of part Swiss descent

Amy Brenneman (born 1964), film and TV actress, father of part Swiss descent

Yul Brynner (1920–1985), actor, father of part Swiss descent

James Caviezel (born 1968), film actor, paternal grandfather of Swiss descent

Billie Dove (1903–1997), film actress

Tyler Hoechlin (born 1987), film actor, father of part Swiss descent

Q'Orianka Kilcher (born 1990), singer and actress, of part Swiss descent

George Lucas (born 1944), film director, of part Swiss descent

Bridget Marquardt (born 1975), model, actress

Victor Mature (1913–1999), film actor

Jeremy Maxwell (born 1973), film actor

Jodi Ann Paterson (born 1975), model, actress and former beauty queen

Michelle Pfeiffer (born 1958), film actress, maternal grandfather of Swiss descent

Ryan Seacrest (born 1974), television and radio host, television producer, and entrepreneur, of part Swiss descent

August Schellenberg (born 1936), actor

Liev Schreiber (born 1967), film actor, father of part Swiss descent

Meryl Streep (born 1949), film actress, father of part Swiss descent

William Wyler (1902–1981), film director

Renée Zellweger (born 1969), film actress, Swiss-born father

Visual artists

Jeremiah Theus (1716–1774) of Chur, painter

Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947), portrait and impressionistic still-life painter

Herbert Matter (1907–1984), photographer and graphic designer

Writers and publicists

Fernand Auberjonois (1910–2004), journalist, foreign correspondent of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade

William Frank Buckley (1925–2008), writer

A. C. Frieden (born 1966), novelist

Lorin Morgan-Richards, author and illustrator

Eudora Alice Welty (1909–2001), writer; ancestry can be traced to Emmental Valley of Switzerland; Swiss ancestral name Wälti

Musicians

Melissa Auf der Maur (born 1972), singer

Rudolph Ganz (1877–1972), pianist, conductor and composer

Jewel (born 1974), singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and author

Cyndi Lauper (born 1953), singer-songwriter and actress

Karina Lombard (born 1969), singer and actress

Elvis Perkins (born 1976), singer-songwriter

Other

Mary Katherine Campbell (1905–1990), only Miss America winner to hold beauty title twice, 1922 & 1923; mother was of partial Swiss ancestry

Gary Gygax (1938–2008), writer and game designer, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons

Governors and presidents

Anthony G. Brown (born 1961), Governor of Maryland

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), 34th President of the United States

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964), 31st President of the United States

Robert B. Meyner (1908–1990), Governor of New Jersey

Barack Obama (born 1961), 44th President of the United States, (Swiss distant ancestors).

Emanuel L. Philipp (1861–1925), Governor of Wisconsin

Congressmen and senators

James L. Buckley (born 1923), Senator of New York

Albert Gallatin (1761–1849), U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Senator of Pennsylvania, diplomat

James William Good (1866–1929), Congressman Iowa

Amy Klobuchar (born 1960), Senator of Minnesota

James S. Negley (1826–1901), Congressman Pennsylvania

Robert Portman (born 1955), Senator of Ohio

Benjamin F. Welty (1870–1962), Congressman from Allen County, Ohio; ancestry traced back to Emmental Valley, Switzerland; Swiss ancestral name Wälti

Other

William Wirt (1772–1834), author and statesman who is credited with turning the position of United States Attorney General into one of influence; Swiss father.

J. Edgar Hoover (1935–1972), first Director of the FBI

Warren E. Burger (1907–1995), Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986

August Claessens (1885–1954), politician, best known as one of the five New York Assemblymen

Albert Gallatin (1761–1849), politician, ethnologist, linguist, founder of New York University, diplomat, and United States Secretary of the Treasury

Fred Iklé (1924–2011), Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Wally Schirra (1923–2007), astronaut, only person to fly in all of America's first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo)

Samuel F. Snively (1859–1952), Mayor of Duluth, Minnesota

Peter Staub (1827–1904), Mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee

William Wirt (1772–1834), US Attorney General

Dan Zumbach (1960-present), Iowa Senator

Military

Henry Bouquet - prominent Army officer in the French and Indian War and Pontiac's War

Edward Walter Eberle (1864–1929), admiral in the United States Navy, served as Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy and third Chief of Naval Operations

Felix Zollicoffer (1812–1862), newspaperman, three-term US Congressman from Tennessee, officer in the United States Army, and a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War

Henry Wirz (1822–1865), the only Confederate soldier executed in the aftermath of the American Civil War for war crimes

Religion

Daniel Kumler Flickinger (1824–1911), Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ

Martin Marty (1834–1886), Benedictine priest

Philip Schaff (1819–1893), Protestant theologian and a historian of the Christian church

Scientists and engineers

Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (1835–1910), geologist and zoologist

Louis Agassiz (1807–1873), zoologist, glaciologist, and geologist, the husband of educator Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz, and one of the first world-class American scientists

Berni Alder (born 1925), physicist

David Alter (1807–1881), inventor, almost discovered spectroscopy

Othmar Ammann (1879–1965), civil engineer

Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier (1840–1914), archeologist

Felix Bloch (1905–1983), physicist

Armand Borel (1923–2003), mathematician

Florian Cajori (1859–1930), mathematician

Eddie Rickenbacker (1890–1973), automobile race car driver and automotive designer, hero of World War I, government consultant in military matters and a pioneer in air transportation

Robert Frank (born 1924), important figure in American photography and film

Hans R. Camenzind (1934–2012), inventor of the 555 timer IC

Albert Einstein (1879–1955), theoretical physicist widely regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century and one of the greatest physicists of all time

Edmond H. Fischer (born 1920), biochemist

Walter Gautschi (born 1927), mathematician

Otto Frederick Hunziker (1873–1959), dairy educator and technologist

Josias Joesler (1895–1927), architect

John Kruesi (1843–1899), inventor and close associate of Thomas Edison

Adolf Meyer (1866–1950), psychiatrist

Jean Piccard (1884–1963), scientist and high-altitude balloonist

Louis François de Pourtalès (1824–80), naturalist

Max Theiler (1899–1972), virologist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing a vaccine against yellow fever

Robert Julius Trumpler (1886–1956), astronomer

Etienne Wenger (born 1952), educational researcher

Orville and Wilbur Wright, Orville (1871-1948) and Wilbur (1867-1912), aviation pioneers, inventors

Fritz Zwicky (1898–1974), astronomer

Adolph Rickenbacker (1886–1976), pioneer of the electric guitar; founder of the Rickenbacker guitar company, whose products would be an important influence on 1960s music through, among others, The Beatles, The Who and The Byrds

Sports

Martin Buser (born 1958), champion of sled dog racing

Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941), racing driver; founder of the Chevrolet Motor Car Company, now the most famous brand of General Motors

Phil Dalhausser (1980 -), Olympic beach volleyball champion; born in Baden to German father and Swiss mother

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008), controversial world chess champion

William "Pudge" Heffelfinger (1867–1954), first professional football player

Jeff Hostetler (born 1961), quarterback in the NFL for the New York Giants, Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, and Washington Redskins.

Fred Merkle (1888–1956), baseball player

Ben Roethlisberger (born 1982), quarterback in the NFL for the Pittsburgh Steelers

Rudolph "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone (1913–1996), perhaps the best known pool player in the United States

Ben Zobrist - second baseman in Major League Baseball

Other

Helen Keller (1880–1968), author, political activist and lecturer; first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree

Christoph Meili (born 1968), whistleblower

Chesley Sullenberger (born 1951), airline transport pilot who successfully carried out the emergency ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, saving the lives of the 155 people on the aircraft