41.7866° N, 71.5578° W
PROVIDENCE
Most Famous People Born in Providence, United States
- Notable people
- 736
- Peak decade
- 1940s
- Median birth year
- 1927
- Most distinctive
- Bank 5.8×
Providence's Bank bench is what's left of the old Rhode Island mercantile and textile fortunes that built Federal Hill and the Brown family empire, with a Lawyer class drawn from the same patrician pipeline. The Baseball count reaches back to the Providence Grays of the 1880s, while a modern RISD-and-Brown creative vein runs through the Music and Screenwriter lines — Damien Chazelle and a thick seam of film composers.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Providence during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1940s with 86 notable births.
What Providence Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Politician is Providence's biggest profession — 16% of all notables (116).
Providence over-indexes on bank — 5.8× the global rate.
Providence under-produces football — only 0.3× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Providence's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Politics & Law
- Sports
- Film & TV
- Writing
- Music
- Science
- Other
- Filtered to 1870s Clear ×
George M. Cohan
1878 - 1942
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
1874 - 1948
Walter Guyton Cady
1874 - 1974
Elizabeth Okie Paxton
1877 - 1971
William Seaman Bainbridge
1870 - 1947
Mabel May Woodward
1877 - 1945
Chester Holmes Aldrich
1871 - 1940
Edwin R. Phillips
1872 - 1915
Frederic Poole Gorham
1871 - 1933
Frank E. Winsor
1870 - 1939
Pat Duff
1875 - 1925
Joseph Clark Hoppin
1870 - 1925
Billy Kinloch
1874 - 1931
William Penn Bates
1879 - 1956
Paddy Greene
1875 - 1934
Joe S. Jackson
1871 - 1936
Nathaniel W. Smith
1873 - 1957
Joseph H. Gainer
1878 - 1945
Robert Alexander Inch
1873 - 1961
John F. Collins (mayor of Providence)
1872 - 1962
Irving O. Hunt
1878 - 1951
Agnes Hoppin
1874 - 1898