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 Atatrk - 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
Ren 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. Ferr - 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
Sren Kierkegaard - The father of existentialism
William Kirby - The father of entomology

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