WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Ohioans are being asked to vote on who they believe should represent the state in the U.S. Capitol's statuary hall. The statue will join one of President James A. Garfield, an Ohio native, already in the hall.
The finalists chosen by a committee of legislators and others:
- James M. Ashley: born on Nov. 24, 1822, near Pittsburgh, Pa., family moved to Portsmouth, Ohio when he was 4; abolitionist, congressman and northwest Ohio business leader; first U.S. representative to call for an amendment to the Constitution that would outlaw slavery.
- Thomas Alva Edison: born on Feb. 11, 1847, in Milan Ohio; inventor and businessman; invented first practical incandescent light bulb, printing telegraph, phonograph, electronic vote recorder and kinetoscope - the precursor to the film projector; helped develop new weapons for U.S. military; formed companies that were consolidated into Edison General Electric, which later became the General Electric Corp.
- Ulysses S. Grant: born April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio; commanding general of the Union Army at the end of the Civil War, 18th president; in 1866 became first person since George Washington to hold rank of General of the Army; also fought in Mexican War.
- William M. McCulloch: born near Holmesville, Ohio, on Nov. 24, 1901; civil rights activist, lawyer, member of Ohio House and congressman; served as Ohio House Minority Leader and was first House member to serve three consecutive terms as Speaker; credited with introducing civil rights legislation in the U.S. House; his bipartisan support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was instrumental in its adoption.
- Jesse C. Owens: born Sept. 12, 1913, in Oakville, Ala., family moved to Cleveland when he was 8; track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games and set several world records; first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
- Judith A. Resnik: born on April 5, 1949, in Akron, Ohio; American astronaut who died on Orbiter Challenger when it exploded shortly after launch on Jan. 28, 1986; helped develop software for NASA's space shuttle program; was a mission specialist on the Orbiter Discovery's maiden flight in 1984.
- Albert B. Sabin: born on Aug. 26, 1906, in Bialystok, Poland, then a part of Imperial Russia, family immigrated to U.S. in 1921; medical researcher who developed a live oral vaccine to prevent polio; researched the cause of polio at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where he developed polio vaccine in 1957; served as a consultant to the U.S. Army Epidemiological Board's Virus Committee during World War II, helping to develop vaccines for encephalitis, sand-fly fever, and dengue fever.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe: born June 14, 1811, in Litchfield, Conn., family moved to Cincinnati in 1832; author and abolitionist; wrote the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" - based on former slaves and Underground Railroad participants - which demonized slavery and increased anti-slavery sentiment in the North before the Civil War.
- Harriet Taylor Upton: born on December 17, 1853, in Ravenna, Ohio; author, suffragist and first woman to serve as vice-chair of the Republican National Committee; first woman elected to the Warren (Ohio) Board of Education; instrumental in the passage of the first child labor law, wrote several children books and histories.
- Wilbur and Orville Wright: Wilbur Wright was born on April 16, 1867, in Millville, Ind., family moved to Dayton, Ohio when he was a child; Orville Wright was born Aug. 19, 1871, in Dayton, Ohio; aviators; their first successful flight of a powered airplane occurred at Kitty Hawk, N.C., on Dec. 17, 1903; Orville Wright was one of the original members of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, founded in 1929, the predecessor to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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