Forgotten man is a phrase with several meanings, some of which are polar opposites. It was first used by William Graham Sumner in his article The Forgotten Man to refer to the person compelled to pay for reformist programs; however, since Franklin Roosevelt appropriated the phrase in a 1932 speech, it has more often been used to refer to those at the bottom of the economic government whom the state (in Roosevelt's view and in the general social humanitarian approach) needed to help.

Yale University professor William Graham Sumner had a different meaning of the forgotten man. His algebraic definition of the forgotten man was "c", who is coerced into helping the man at the economic bottom "x", by "a" and "b" who demand charity for "x".

Roosevelt used the term in a fireside chat (radio address) he gave on April 7, 1932. Roosevelt used the term to describe the poor men who needed money and were not getting it, promoting his New Deal.

The Forgotten Man is also the name of several works.

Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty (born October 20, 1950) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T. Wilbury, Jr. and Muddy Wilbury.

He has recorded a number of hit singles with the Heartbreakers and as a solo artist, many of which remain heavily played on adult contemporary and classic rock radio. His music, and notably his hits, have become popular among younger generations as he continues to host sold-out shows. Throughout his career, Petty and his collaborators have sold 60 million albums.

Tom Petty was born and raised in Gainesville, Florida, and attended Gainesville High School. His interest in rock and roll music began at age 10 when he met Elvis Presley. In the summer of 1961, his uncle was working on the set of Presley's film Follow That Dream in nearby Ocala, Florida and invited Petty to come down and watch the shoot. He instantly became an Elvis Presley fan and soon traded his Wham-O slingshot for a box of Elvis 45s. In a 2006 interview on the National Public Radio program Fresh Air, Petty said that he knew he wanted to be in a band the moment he saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. One of his first guitar teachers was Don Felder, a fellow Gainesville resident, who would later join the Eagles. As a young man, Petty worked briefly on the grounds crew for the University of Florida, but never attended as a student. An Ogeechee lime tree that he planted while employed at the University is now called the Tom Petty tree.

Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for five decades as Joan Blondell.

After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career. Establishing herself as a sexy wisecracking blonde, she was a pre-Code staple of Warner Brothers and appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions. She was most active in films during the 1930s, and during this time she co-starred with Glenda Farrell in nine films, in which the duo portrayed gold-diggers. Blondell continued acting for the rest of her life, often in small character roles or supporting television roles. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Blue Veil (1951).

Blondell was seen in featured roles in two films released shortly before her death from leukemia, Grease (1978) and the remake of The Champ (1979).

Blondell was born to a vaudeville family in New York City. Her father, known as Eddie Joan Blondell, Jr., was born in Indiana in 1866 to French parents, and was a vaudeville comedian and one of the original Katzenjammer Kids. Blondell's mother was Kathryn ("Katie") Cain, born April 13, 1884, in Brooklyn of Irish American parents. Her younger sister, Gloria, also an actress, was briefly married to film producer Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli (the future producer of the James Bond film series) and bears a strong resemblance to her older sister, Joan. Blondell also had a brother, the namesake of her father and grandfather. Her cradle was a property trunk as her parents moved from place to place and she made her first appearance on stage at the age of four months when she was carried on in a cradle as the daughter of Peggy Astaire in The Greatest Love.

James "Jimmy" Radcliffe (November 18, 1936 – July 27, 1973) was an American soul singer, composer, arranger, conductor and record producer.

James Radcliffe was born in New York City. He released such singles as "My Ship is Coming In", a song composed by his writing partner Joey Brooks (later of "You Light Up My Life" fame), was later covered by The Walker Brothers as a pop music hit, and also wrote several songs featured in the children's TV show The Banana Splits. He will be probably best remembered for his recording of "Long After Tonight Is All Over" (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David) which became famous as one of the "3 before 8" songs that was played at the Wigan Casino all-nighters, the Northern soul venue. The song was a minor hit in the UK Singles Chart in 1965, reaching #40. The popularity of "Long After Tonight Is All Over" led to a promotional tour in support of the record, wherein Radcliffe was featured in the British music press (Record Mirror, NME) and appeared on numerous radio and televisions shows including Thank Your Lucky Stars; the ABC Lucky Stars Special Presents Cilla Black with Cilla Black, The Riot Squad, The Hollies, The Swinging Blue Jeans, Del Shannon and Paul Anka (January 23, 1965); and The Eamonn Andrews Show.

Amity Shlaes (born September 10, 1960) is an American author and columnist from New York, who writes about politics and economics. She currently serves as director of the 4% Growth Project, a key economic initiative of the George W. Bush Institute.

Amity Shlaes graduated from Yale University magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1982.

For the past five years, Miss Shlaes has been writing a syndicated column for Bloomberg News. The column appears weekly both on Bloomberg terminals and websites, and in papers such as the Orange County Register, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, San Francisco Chronicle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Miss Shlaes also writes a print column for Forbes Magazine, rotating with Lee Kwan Yew, David Malpass, and Paul Johnson.

She is also a regular contributor to Marketplace, the public radio show. She has appeared on numerous other radio and television shows over the course of her career.

Prior to writing her column for Bloomberg, Miss Shlaes was a columnist for the Financial Times for five years, until September 2005. Before that she was a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, specializing in economics. She followed the collapse of communism for the Wall Street Journal/Europe and in the early 1990s she served as the Journal's op-ed editor.