List of people known as the father or mother of something

The following alphabetical lists includes men and women commonly known as the father or mother of something. Whether each of these persons is genuinely the father or mother of this thing is a matter of opinion.

A

• Philip Abelson - The father of the nuclear submarine
• Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard - The father of Danish painting
• Jane Addams - The mother of Social Work (called "The mother of the world")
• George Agricola - The father of Mineralogy
• Mikael Agricola - The father of Finnish written language
• Steve Allen - The father of the television talk show
• Eric Allman - The father of modern Internet e-mail
• Susan B. Anthony - "The Mother of Us All" (title of Virgil Thomson/Gertrude Stein opera)
• Peter Artedi - The father of ichthyology
• Philip Astley - The father of the modern circus
• Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - The father of modern Turkey
• Stephen F. Austin - The father of Texas

B

• Charles Babbage - The father of the computer / computing
• Stephen Moulton Babcock - The father of scientific dairying
• Johann Sebastian Bach - The father of music
• Leo Baekeland - The father of plastic
• George Bancroft - The father of American History
• Jose Celso Barbosa - The father of Puerto Rico's statehood movement
• Alexander Graham Bell - The father of the telephone
• Edward Bernays - The father of public relations - aka the father of spin
• William Bradford - The father of American History
• Tycho Brahe - The father of modern astronomy
• Richard Bright - The father of nephrology
• James Busby - The father of the Australian wine industry
• Nolan Bushnell - The father of computer entertainment / electronic gaming
• Santiago Ramon y Cajal - The father of Neuroscience
• John Calvin - The father of Protestantism
• John Cassavetes - The father of American independent film-making
• Roman Baldorioty de Castro - The father of Puerto Rico's Autonomy movement

C

• Vinton G. Cerf - The father of the Internet
• Jesus Colon - The father of the Nuyorican movement
• Alan Cooper - The father of Visual Basic
• Nicolaus Copernicus - The father of modern astronomy
• W. L. Creech - The father of the Thunderbirds
• Dr. Frank W. Cyr - father of the yellow school bus

D

• John Nelson Darby - The father of dispensationalism
• Charles Darwin - the father of evolutionary biology
• William Morris Davis - The father of American geography
• De Chauliac - The father of modern surgery and hospitals
• Lee De Forest - The father of radio
• Democritus - The father of atomic theory
• René Descartes - The father of modern philosophy
• Diophantus - The father of Algebra
• Walt Disney - The father of the animation industry
• Alberto Santos-Dumont - The father of aviation
• Allen B. Dumont - The father of modern TV
• Isadora Duncan - The mother of modern dance
• John Boyd Dunlop - The father of the modern tire

E

• Albert Einstein - The father of the Relativity
• Quintus Ennius - The father of Latin poetry
• Brian Eno - The father of ambient music
• Robert Ettinger - The father of cryonics

F

• Luis A. Ferré - The father of the Puerto Rican autonomy movement
• Reginald Fessenden - The father of radio broadcasting
• Alexander Fleming - The father of penicillin
• Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens - The father of brain physiology
• Gottlob Frege - The father of modern mathematical logic and analytic philosophy
• Sigmund Freud - The father of psychoanalysis
• Henry M. Morris - The father of the "creation science" movement

G

• Galileo Galilei - The father of modern astronomy and of the scientific method of modern science
• Gandhi - The father of the nation of India and of non-violence
• Lillian Moller Gilbreth - The mother of modern management
• Henry Gilman - The father of organometallic chemistry
• Giotto - The father of Renaissance art
• Robert Goddard - The father of modern rocketry
• James Gosling - The father of the Java programming language
• Ben Graham - The father of modern financial analysis
• Thomas Graham - The father of colloid chemistry
• David Wark Griffith - The father of modern film and film grammar

H

• WC Handy - The father of the blues
• Ben Harney - The father of ragtime
• Joseph Haydn - The father of the symphony
• Abram Stevens Hewitt - the father of the New York City Subway System
• Jim Henson - The father of the Muppets
• Herodotus - The father of history
• Herophilus - The father of anatomy
• William Herschel - The father of modern astronomy
• Theodor Herzl - The father of modern secular Zionism
• Hippocrates - The father of medicine
• Reimar Horten - the father of aircraft stealth technology - aka the father of the flying wing
• James Hutton - The father of modern geology

I

• Art Ingels - The father of karting

J

• Abraham Jacobi - The father of U.S. pediatrics
• Fredrick Jahn - The father of gymnastics
• Bill James - The father of modern baseball statistical study and sabermetrics
• Thomas Jefferson - The father of archaeology
• Edward H. Johnson - The father of Electric Christmas tree lights
• Phillip E. Johnson - The father of intelligent design creationism
• Mary Harris Jones or Mother Jones - The "Grandmother of All Agitators".
• Fatima Jinnah - Mother of the Nation of Pakistan
• Theodore Judah - The father of the U.S. first Transcontinental Railroad

K

• Karadjordje - The father of modern Serbia
• Mustafa Kemal - The father of modern Turkey
• Johannes Kepler - The father of modern astronomy
• Søren Kierkegaard - The father of existentialism
• William Kirby - The father of entomology
• Lajos Kossuth - The father of Hungarian Democracy

L

• Jack LaLanne - The father of fitness
• Lancist - The father of clinical medicine
• Antoine Lavoisier - The father of modern chemistry
• John Lennard-Jones - The father of modern computational chemistry
• Carolus Linnaeus - The father of taxonomy
• Joseph Lister - The father of modern antisepsis
• Raymond Loewy - The father of industrial design
• Professor Longhair - The father of New Orleans rhythm and blues and funk
• Martin Luther - The father of Protestantism and of Lutheranism

M

• Niccolo Machiavelli - The father of modern political theory and of pragmatism
• James Madison - The father of the United States Constitution
• Winnie Madikizela-Mandela - The mother of South Africa
• Marcello Malpighi - The father of microscopic anatomy
• Thomas Malthus - The father of social science
• Winnie Madikizela-Mandela - The mother of South Africa
• Herbert Marcuse - The father of the New Left
• Karl Marx - The father of modern Communism
• George Mason - The father of the United States Bill of Rights
• John McLoughlin - The father of Oregon
• George E. McNeill - The father of the eight hour work day (in the U.S.)
• Gregor Mendel - The father of genetics
• Spike Milligan - The father of modern British comedy and of Monty Python
• Billy Mitchell - The father of United States Air Force
• Bill Monroe - The father of Bluegrass music
• Claudio Monteverdi - The father of opera
• Robert Moon - The father of the ZIP code
• Muddy Waters - The father of Chicago blues
• Johannes Peter Muller - The father of modern physiology

N

• John von Neumann - The father of game theory
• Isaac Newton - The father of modern astronomy, of modern science and of modern mathematics
• Abu Nidal - The father of the Arab struggle and of modern terrorism
• Florence Nightingale - The mother of modern nursing
• Saparmurat Niyazov, a.k.a. Turkmenbashi - The father of the Turkmen people
• Sondre Norheim - The father of skiing

O

• Hermann Oberth - The father of space flight and of modern rocketry
• J. Robert Oppenheimer - The father of the atomic bomb

P

• Fredrik Pacius - The father of Finnish music
• Dorothy G. Page - The mother of the Iditarod
• Phoebe Palmer - The mother of the holiness movement
• Henry Parkes - The father of Australian Federation
• Louis Pasteur - The father of bacteriology, of stereochemistry and of microbiology
• Charles Peirce - The father of pragmatism
• Don Pendleton - The father of the action adventure novel
• Eduard Slavoljub Penkala - The father of the ink pen
• Phan Boi Chau - The father of modern Vietnamese revolutionary philosophy
• Phan Chu Trinh - The father of modern Vietnamese nationalism
• Camille Pissarro - The father of Impressionism
• Henri Poincaré - The father of algabraic topology
• Christopher Polhem - The father of Swedish engineering
• Casimir Pulaski - The father of the United States Army Cavalry
• Pythagoras - The father of numbers

Q

R

• Damrong Rajanubhab - The father of the history of Thailand
• S. R. Ranganathan - The father of library science in India
• Jef Raskin - The father of the Apple Macintosh
• Joe Redington, Sr. - the father of the Iditarod
• Regiomontanus - The father of modern astronomy
• Mikołaj Rej - The father of Polish literature
• Hyman G. Rickover The father of the United States Nuclear Navy
• Louis Riel - The father of Manitoba
• Jimmie Rodgers - The father of country music
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The father of Romantic sensibility, of the French Revolution

S

• Paul Sandby - The father of English watercolor painting
• Ferdinand de Saussure - The father of modern linguistics
• Junípero Serra - The father of California
• Ambrose Sevier - The father of Arkansas Statehood
• King Mohammed Zahir Shah - The father of the nation of Afghanistan
• Claude E. Shannon - The father of information theory
• Ras Shorty I - The father of soca music
• Adam Smith - The father of modern economics
• Shinji Sogo - The father of the Japanese Bullet Train (the Shinkansen)
• Niels Steensen - The father of modern paleonthology
• John C. Stennis - The father of the modern United States Navy
• Georg Stiernhielm - The father of Swedish poetry
• Sun Yat-sen - The father of the Revolution and the nation of the Republic of China
• Alejandro Tapia y Rivera - The father of Puerto Rican literature

T

• Manuel Gregorio Tavarez - The father of the Puerto Rican Danzas
• Edward Teller - The father of the hydrogen bomb
• Tertullian - The father of Latin Theology
• Nikola Tesla - The father of modern electronics and of the radio
• LaMarcus Adna Thompson - The father of the rollercoaster
• J. R. R. Tolkien - The father of the modern high fantasy genre
• Leon Trotsky - The father of the Red Army (army of the USSR)
• Andre Thi Truong - The father of the personal computer
• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky - The father of human space flight and of astronautics
• Charles Tupper - The father of Canadian Confederation
• Alan Turing - The father of computer science
• Rustom Jal Vakil - The father of Indian cardiology

U

V

• Edgard Varèse - The father of electronic music
• Andreas Vesalius - The father of anatomy
• Carl Vinson - The father of the two-ocean navy of the United States Navy
• Faust Vrančić - The father of the parachute

W

• John Wanamaker - The father of the U.S. department store
• George Washington - The father of the United States of America
• Alice Waters - The mother of California cuisine and of American cooking
• John B. Watson - The father of behaviorism
• Isaac Watts - The father of English Hymnody
• Arthur Gordon Webster - The father of the American Physical Society
• Alfred Wegener - The father of plate tectonics / continental drift
• Norbert Wiener - The father of cybernetics
• Woodrow Wilson - The father of the League of Nations and of Internationalism
• Johann Winckelmann - The father of modern archaeology
• Wright brothers - The fathers of aviation
• Wilhelm Wundt - The father of modern psychology

X

Y

• Gazi Yaşargil - The father of micro-neurosurgery
• Rouzbeh Yassini - The father of the cable modem
• Eliezer Ben-Yehuda - The father of the modern Hebrew

Z