As we celebrate the Fourth of July with a barbeque and fireworks this year, let us take a moment to honor the Greek-born men and women who immigrated across the Atlantic to help build the America we know today. From our ancestors to our parents, Greek immigrants have typically arrived in the U.S. with little money, no English skills, and last names that were either made fun of or forced to become anglicized. Yet, Greek immigrants were and continue to be armed with ambition, hard work, and an unwillingness to give up. And within that journey, here are ten Greek immigrant figures who have left lasting marks on American medicine, science, the arts, journalism, and beyond.
Michael Anagnos
(1837–1906)
Education
Born in Epirus, Anagnos was an educator who served as second director of the Perkins Institution for the Blind from 1876-1906. In 1887, he founded the world’s first Kindergarten for the Blind in Massachusetts, expanding educational opportunities for American visually impaired children including Helen Keller.
Tom Carvel
Tom Carvel holding vanilla and chocolate ice cream cones. (Photo: Courtesy of @greekshelpinggreeks, Instagram)
(1906–1990)
Business
Born in Athens, Carvel, (Athanasios Karvelas) was a businessman and entrepreneur who founded the ice cream franchise Carvel in 1934. When forced to serve melting ice cream out of a flat-tired truck, Carvel discovered that customers loved the softer texture. He went on to revolutionize the American dessert industry by pioneering the first soft-serve ice cream.
George Colvocoresses
(1816–1872)
Military
Born in Chios, Colvocoresses was a U.S. Navy officer who commanded the Saratoga warship during the American Civil War. He arrived in America as an orphaned child refugee after surviving an Ottoman massacre, going on to sail the famous Wilkes Expedition that helped map the Pacific Ocean from 1838 until 1842. His death remains an unsolved murder.
Theano Papazoglou Margaris
Theano Papazoglou Margaris, author of “Chronicle of Halsted Street.” (Photo: Courtesy of @hellenicmuseum, Instagram)
(1906–1991)
Literature
Born in Asia Minor, Margaris was a writer most famous for ‘Chronicle of Halsted Street’, her 1962 short story collection documenting Greek immigrant life and community in Chicago, as well as writing for The National Herald. She arrived in the U.S. as a teenager, orphaned and twice displaced as a refugee. Margaris’ work won Greece’s national literary award, the first time a Greek writer living outside the country received the honor.
Dimitri Mitropoulos
(1896–1960)
Music
Born in Athens, Mitropoulos was a pianist and composer who served as music director of the New York Philharmonic orchestra from 1949 to 1958. His ability to conduct entirely from memory, often without a baton, allowed him to perform avant-garde pieces that introduced American audiences towards bolder classical music that reshaped the U.S. orchestra industry.
George Papanicolaou
George Papanicolaou at work in the laboratory. (Photo: Courtesy of @gineconline)
(1883–1962)
Medicine
Born in Evia, Papanicolaou was a physician who invented the Pap smear, a procedure allowing doctors to catch cervical cancer before symptoms appear. Papanicolaou immigrated to New York with little money or English skills, yet his Pap smear became a staple in women’s checkups around the world, is credited with preventing hundreds of thousands of cancer cases today.
Katina Paxinou
Katina Paxinou, Greek film actress whose 1944 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress made her the first Greek-born actor to ever receive an Oscar. (Photo: Courtesy of @classicmoviehub, Instagram)
(1900–1973)
Film & Theater
Born in Piraeus, Paxinou was a stage and film actress whose 1944 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress made her the first Greek-born actor to ever receive an Oscar. When World War II broke out, she fled from London to New York, bringing along decades of training in classical Greek tragedy to American stages and screens.
Spyros Skouras
(1893–1971)
Film & Business
Born in Elis, Skouras was a film executive who served as president of 20th Century Fox from 1942 to 1962. He arrived in St. Louis as a penniless teenager and worked his way up from theater usher to studio president, eventually betting big on the widescreen CinemaScope format that helped rescue American movie theaters from the threat of television.
Helen Vlachos
(1911–1995)
Journalism
Born in Athens, Vlachos was the publisher of Greece’s leading newspaper, Kathimerini. In 1967, she prevented the military junta from utilizing Kathimerini as a propaganda tool by shutting the paper down rather than publish under their censorship. Vlachos crossed the Atlantic to warn the American public of the dictatorship, helping shift U.S. opinion and policy on Greece until democracy was restored in 1974.
Agni Vlavianos-Arvanitis
(1936–2018)
Science
Born in Athens, Vlavianos-Arvanitis was a molecular biologist and researcher who founded the Biopolitics International Organisation, advocating for biopolicy and environmental protection worldwide. In 1982, she revived the ancient Olympic Truce, ‘ekecheiria’, at the United Nations in New York, a tradition which is still honored during the Olympics today.
These 10 lives serve as a reminder that the American dream has always been written in part by those who weren’t born here, yet who significantly contributed to some of the nation’s most defining chapters. This Independence Day, their legacy is worth celebrating not just as American history, but as Greek-American history.
