Mathew Benjamin Brady · Public domain

The first person of Jewish descent elected to the U.S. House and, in 1845, the first elected to the U.S. Senate — a milestone reached despite antisemitic attacks that dogged him throughout his career. Yulee also built Florida's first cross-state railroad, earning him the title "Father of Florida Railroads." His legacy carries serious complications: he converted to Christianity before his political rise, a decision many historians read as an attempt at assimilation into the Southern planter elite, and he enslaved more than a thousand people on his Florida plantation.