Historical Figures Who Actually Lived Long Enough To Be Photographed

Lived: 1809-1865 
Est. Net Worth: $111,000 at death* 

Of all the names on this list Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, is someone that everyone will know. Abe Lincoln is famous as both a national hero and martyr, known for his leadership in preserving the Union and abolishing slavery.

President Abraham Lincoln ©Everett Collection/Shutterstock.com

In popular and scholarly polls, Abe often ranks as America’s greatest president. This picture shows Lincoln as he was—a tall, dark-haired, somewhat gaunt man carrying the weight of the union (and the country) on his shoulders.

Lived: 1809-1882
Est. Net Worth: $20.5 million at death* 

Charles Darwin was a scientist who became famous in the 1800s for his contributions to the science of evolution. Basically, Darwin came up with the idea that all species descended from a common ancestor. That theory, known as evolutionary biology, is now fundamental.

Charles Darwin ©Library of Congress /Getty Images

Pictured here is Darwin as an older man, not too long before he passed away in Downe, U.K. in 1882. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is a must-read for those interested in evolution, and you can order it on Amazon today to learn more.

Lived: 1866-1909 
Est. Net Worth: $1.1 million* 

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wasn’t just a hit movie; both were real people. Butch Cassidy was one of the Old West’s most famous outlaws, robbing trains and banks left and right. He was the leader of a gang of outlaws called “The Wild Bunch” in the late 1800s.

Butch Cassidy ©Jonathan Blair /Getty Images

Butch Cassidy was born Robert Parker, but he picked up his name while on the lam. Though it’s hard to picture someone robbing a Union Pacific carrier now; train and bank robberies had everyone on their toes during the Victorian Era. 

Lived: 1846-1917 
Est. Net Worth: Unconfirmed 

Though a lot of us know Buffalo Bill from the movie Silence of the Lambs, the man himself was a true showman. Buffalo Bill, pictured here, was a jack of all trades. He was a soldier, bison hunter, and, of course, a performer.

Buffalo ©Bill Moffett/Wikimedia Commons

Buffalo Bill hunted down buffalo in the 1860s to feed construction crews working on railroads. During that time, the man was said to have killed 4,280 head of buffalo, making him the champion buffalo hunter of the Plains. Let’s just say that PETA wouldn’t look too kindly on this man, were he alive today.

Lived: 1859-1881 
Est. Net Worth: Unconfirmed 

Billy the Kid is a figure that even those with a passing knowledge of Old West history in America know. Billy The Kid was a famous gunslinger and outlaw, and this photo was one of few ever captured of the enigmatic criminal.

Billy The Kid (left)©BBC Mundo/Wikimedia Commons

The gunfighter was said to have taken down twenty-one men before he turned twenty-one (that year, he himself was shot and killed). The iconic criminal figure was feared throughout the Old West, and he and his gang wreaked havoc throughout new, struggling Western territories.

Lived: 1769-1852
Est. Net Worth: $4 billion* 

It’s amazing to think that someone who was born in 1769 could have been photographed, but such is the case with Arthur Wellesley, the 1^st Duke of Wellington. He lived until the 1850s, but a photograph was still taken of him before his passing.

The 1st Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley ©MarcusBritish/Wikimedia Commons

The statesman was one of the leading political and military figures of his time in Britain, serving two times as the U.K.’s prime minister. He made a name for himself in the Napoleonic Wars, and he is famous for defeating Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. As a military general, he was famous for his incredible, wily defensive skills, and his battle plans are still a subject of study in military academies today.

Lived: 1869-1948
Est. Net Worth: $0* 

Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer, nationalist, and ethicist who was one of the most famous figures of peace during the late 1800s and early 1900s. He used nonviolent, peaceful resistance to campaign for Indian independence from Britain.

Gandhi ©Central Press/Getty Images

Gandhi would go on, long after his passing in 1948, to inspire civil rights movements around the world. The Indian leader is a very important figure, not just in his home country, but around the world to this day.

Lived: 1881-1973
Est. Net Worth: $530 million-$1.1 billion at death* 

Interestingly, a lot of people don’t realize that Pablo Picasso was alive and well until the seventies. We see his art in museums all over the world, with paintings that sell for millions and millions of dollars. Though born in the 1800s, Picasso lived almost a century.

Pablo Picasso ©Tony Vaccaro/Getty Images

Ergo, he was photographed many times during his life, and this is what he looked like in his older years. Upon his death, Picasso was worth as much as $1.1 billion, adjusting for inflation, thanks to famous paintings such as Guernica and The Weeping Woman. 

Lived: 1860-1926
Est. Net Worth: $15 million* 

Annie Oakley was a sharpshooter who was ahead of her time. She was the star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, having honed her shooting skills since she was a child hunting to provide for her poor, starving family in Western Ohio.

Annie Oakley ©Underwood Archives /Getty Images

When she was just fifteen, she won a shooting contest against Frank E. Butler, an experienced marksman (she’d later marry him). Annie was a star in a sport (and world) dominated by men, and that made her legendary around the world.

Lived: 1767-1845 
Est. Net Worth: $132 million* 

Andrew Jackson, pictured here in photograph form (though there are many portraits of him), was a lawyer and statesman who was the U.S.’s seventh president from 1829 to 1837. Before he was president, he became famous for being an Army general.

President Andrew Jackson ©Hulton Archive /Getty Images

There are a lot of interesting facts about Jackson, whose legacy is mixed because of his treatment of Native Americans and Black people. He was once a prisoner of war in the Revolutionary War, and he, like Abe Lincoln, was a self-taught military leader and frontier lawyer.

Lived: 1851-1903
Est. Net Worth: Unconfirmed 

You might know Calamity Jane from the hit movie bearing her name, but the woman herself, born Martha Jane Canary, was a real pistol. The frontierswoman, storyteller, and sharpshooter was famous for being a favorite acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok (also on this list).

Calamity Jane /Extracted from public domain pdf file of above on the Internet archive/Wikimedia Commons

She’d appear at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, as well as the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, showcasing her ability to hit a target with precision and spin a good yarn. Jane got her nickname from her appearance—she dressed like a man, and it was said she’d bring “calamity” to those who either angered her or tried to love her.

Lived: 1835-1919
Est. Net Worth: $30 million at death* 

Pictured here is Andrew Carnegie, a man who went from a net worth of nearly nothing to someone with an empire in the billions. He was worth $30 million at death because he gave away most of us money to charity.

Andrew Carnegie ©George Rinhart /Getty Images

Carnegie holds the distinction of having been one of the richest Americans in the country’s history, having led the expansion of the U.S. steel industry in the late 1800s. With his wealth, he did great things, becoming a leading charitable donor in not just America, but also the U.K. and British Empire.

Lived: 1759-1869
Est. Net Worth: Unconfirmed 

Daniel F. Bakeman, shown here in this photograph of him in his later years, is a name you may or may not know. He is famous as the last surviving soldier of the American Revolutionary War. They know he was the last survivor because he was the last one getting a pension from the war.

Daniel F. Bakeman © A. D. Cross /Wikimedia Commons

Bakeman was born in 1759 and lived to 1869, putting him at ninety years old—an incredible age to reach back then. Bakeman’s pension was $500 a year. Adjusting for inflation, that’s around $10,400.

Lived: 1830-1886 
Est. Net Worth: $2 million* 

If you’ve ever taken a literary class, chances are, you’ve read a work by or heard the name of this author, Emily Dickinson. The poet was one of the greatest, most original poets of her time, though she was little-known while she was alive.

Emily Dickinson ©DEERSTOP/Wikimedia Commons

Dickinson was a recluse, only wearing white and talking to people through the door of her bedroom. After she died in 1886, more of her work came to light, cementing her legacy posthumously as a beacon of poetry excellence.