Among other significant artists of Scottish descent are designers such as Duncan Phyfe (né Fife), the Inverness-born cabinet-maker and exponent of the Sheraton and, later, Empire styles. Then there were the sculptors Alexander Milne Calder, Alexander Stirling Calder and Alexander Calder, three generations of a family from Aberdeen. Alexander Milne, who emigrated from Scotland to Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century, sculpted the statue of William Penn which graces the city hall. His son, Alexander Stirling, designed Logan Square in the city. Alexander Calder, his son, trained as an engineer. Duncan A. Bruce, notes that, as "the originator of the mobile, Alexander Calder was the only artist in this century to create and practice his own art form".§

Other significant contributions came from the many writers, composers, conductors, dancers, choreographers, singers and actors of the stage and screen with Scottish roots. Washington Irving was one of these. Dubbed the "father of American literature", he was born in New York City in 1783, the son of a native of the Orkney Islands. His work The Sketch Book was read all over the world. A collection of stories of fact and fiction and essays, it included such classics as "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle".

Edgar Allan Poe also had Scots roots. In The Scottish 100, Duncan A. Bruce suggests that the name Poe is a corruption of the Scottish Pollock. In his early childhood, following the death of his mother, Poe was taken to England and Scotland for some five years. Poe, a renowned poet, critic and short-story writer, is perhaps best known for tales of mystery and horror such as The Fall of the House of Usher, and for his poem The Raven.

Henry James, born in 1843, and considered to have been one of the most influential of America’s writers, is internationally acclaimed for his work. During his long career he wrote no fewer than twenty novels in addition to short stories, plays, reviews, travel pieces and other work. His novel The Portrait of a Lady is considered to be his masterpiece.

Other great American writers with Scottish roots include: Margaret Mitchell, whose only book, Gone with the Wind, which gained her the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, took ten years to write and sold eight million copies in forty countries by the time of her death in 1949; Erskine Caldwell, best known for Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre; and J.D. (Jerome David) Salinger of The Catcher in the Rye fame.

The list goes on. . . In his book, The Mark of the Scots, Duncan A. Bruce refers to many of the notable contributions made to "history, science, democracy, literature and the arts" by those with Scottish roots. Among classical composers he names Edward Alexander MacDowell and, most recently, James MacMillan. He also lists the New York conductor William Christie "whose roots go back to Fife and Edinburgh", and the great opera tenor James McCracken, a winner of the Wallace Award.

In addition to the classical, there have been many popular songwriters with Scottish ancestry, including the nineteenth-century Stephen Foster, who is known for such songs as "Oh! Susanna" and "Swanee River". Then, too, there was the folk artist Woody Guthrie, the popular singer Burl Ives and, more recently the folk singer Joan Baez. Even that king of rock ‘n roll, Elvis Presley, had ancestors who came to America from Scotland in the eighteenth century.

Among world-famous dancers and choreographers we should mention Isadora Duncan, the late nineteenth-, early twentieth-century pioneer of modern dance so famed for her free-flowing expressive style which took inspiration from Greek sculpture. Her habit of "dancing barefoot in a loose tunic […] furthered the 20th century emancipation of women’s dress."

Born seventeen years after Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, the celebrated contemporary dancer, choreographer and teacher, and first ever American dancer to perform at the White House, was also of Scottish descent.

The list goes on through filmmakers, directors and stars of the stage and screen. Bruce mentions many famous names including Ethel Merman (née Zimmerman), Lillian Gish, Walt Disney, Bill Hanna, John Wayne (see From the Dollar to the Moon, Chapter 3 – "A spirit of adventure"), John and Anjelica Huston, Cliff Robertson, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Robert Redford, and Faye Dunaway among others.

The individual contributions made by these many creative people, and so many others, are incalculable. As Lewis Wolpert wrote: "If Watson and Crick had not discovered the nature of DNA, one can be virtually certain that other scientists would eventually have determined it. With art – whether painting, music or literature – it is quite different. If Shakespeare had not written Hamlet, no other playwright would have done so."

It is impossible to gauge to what extent Scottish experiences, values and traditions inspired the creativity of these Americans, or what influence other countries in addition to their new homeland may have had on their creative development. Certainly many had a cosmopolitan upbringing, visiting and often living in Europe. Some, too, were of Scots-Irish descent which introduced another cultural influence.

Whistler spent part of his childhood in St. Petersburg. Then, in his twenties, he studied in Paris where he was influenced both by the modernists and by the Japanese art that was so in vogue there. In later life he lived in Paris, Venice and London.

Mary Cassatt for her part spent five years of her early childhood in France and Germany, travelled widely in Europe in her twenties, and settled definitively in France where she formed a close friendship with Edgar Degas. She died at her home, Château Beaufresne, in 1926, aged eighty-two. She, too, was influenced by Japanese artists. Alexander Calder, meanwhile, spent long periods in Paris where his father had studied; his grandfather had studied art in Edinburgh, Paris and London, before to moving to America.

Washington Irving spent many years in Europe. Edgar Allan Poe was taken to Scotland and England as a child. Henry James was sent with his brother William to Geneva, Paris and London during his teens and, when 26, made the traditional grand tour of Europe. From 1875 onwards, James lived in Paris and then in London, retiring to Rye in Sussex.

Isadora Duncan went to Europe with her family at the beginning of her career as a dancer, performed in many countries and founded dance schools in Germany and Russia as well as the United States. She infamously died in an accident in Nice when her trademark flowing scarf was caught in the wheel of the open-topped car in which she was riding.

To those of open minds, travelling, living and working abroad are stimulating if not formative experiences. While the many famous artistic and literary people mentioned here clearly were, or are, free spirits, innovative and inventive, we must ask to what extent their creativity was shaped by the many different environments and influences which they experienced, whether in America or elsewhere. And we can only ponder how America’s creative and artistic achievements would have differed had Scotland’s sons and daughters stayed at home.