The other day, I opened a book my parents gave me more than 60 years ago.

For most of those six decades, “50 Great Americans,” the book was forgotten, left behind when I stopped living with my parents. A few years ago, I found it, and it has occupied a shelf alongside “Winnie the Pooh,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and other literary reminders of my childhood ever since.

I picked up the book again out of curiosity. Who had been considered great Americans back in 1949, the year the book was published, I wondered, and would those same people make the list in 2014?

Well, most of the 50 names were familiar, and they represented many facets of American society. The authors led off their effort with a profile of Ben Franklin, perhaps fittingly, since, as an inventor, businessman, writer, publisher, diplomat and political leader, he filled several niches in the society of his day.

The closing chapter profiles George Gershwin, who, like so many Americans, descended from immigrant members of a persecuted minority who found freedom and success in America and, in return, enriched our culture.

Like any such list, this one features prominent political leaders, including seven presidents, eight, if you count Dwight Eisenhower, who hadn’t been elected yet when the book was published, along with two Supreme Court justices. Only one person on the list is remembered primarily as a member of Congress, though, possibly because Congress was no more popular in 1949 than it is today.

American industry was in its heyday in 1949, and numerous industrial leaders, businessmen and financiers are listed along with people whose inventions sparked business activity.

Gershwin is joined by numerous writers, composers, artists and performers who have produced America’s unique culture, and the inclusion of football player/coach Knute Rockne exemplifies our national love of sports.

Not surprisingly, only one non-white person, George Washington Carver, is listed, and only three women make the list. That alone would make this list controversial if it were published today, but a couple of other elements of the list would likely raise howls of protest if it were issued today.

One reason is the authors are a bit irreverent toward some of their subjects. George Washington, for example, was “not a paragon of virtue,” they wrote. He did lie on occasion, and he swore a lot, gambled, flirted with women, had a hot temper and whipped his slaves. On top of that, he was a terrible speller.

They justified their negative remarks by writing, “Knowing Washington as he really was, we shall stop adoring a mannequin and begin to admire a man.” I don’t think many people would accept the image of the Father of Our Country cussing out his subordinates and whipping a couple of slaves before going off to a luncheon where he would flirt with the hostess. School board members would no doubt get some angry phone calls if this book turned up in classrooms.

The real outcry, though, would come when people realized that some of the people on this list were — one hesitates to say the word — socialists.

At least three of the great Americans on this list were socialists. One was a person you probably never heard of, Charles Proteus Steinmetz. He was a man with a great intellect but a twisted body who fled Germany to avoid persecution for his political beliefs and made his way to America.

In America, he found economic freedom from an employer who recognized his genius and the freedom of thought we Americans enjoy. He took advantage of those freedoms to develop mathematical calculations that helped engineers build the systems needed to bring electricity to American homes and businesses.

Eugene Debs was a labor leader who ran for president as a socialist five times. In 1917, he was jailed for speaking against U.S. participation in World War I, and despite his imprisonment, more than a million Americans voted for him in 1920.

The third socialist was justifiably famous for her intelligence and her courage in overcoming severe barriers in her life. She realized, however, that she would not have succeeded had she been born into poverty. Her concern for those who didn’t have the advantage of a wealthy family led her to identify with the socialists. She became a pacifist, a supporter of birth control when even talking about contraception was a crime, a member of the radical, and sometimes violent, labor union, the Industrial Workers of the World, and one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Despite her political leanings, the Gallup poll in 1999 found that she was one of the most widely admired Americans in the 20th century, and Alabama, one of the most conservative of these United States, is proud to claim this socialist as its citizen.

That’s why there may be a quarter in your piggy bank with the image of Helen Keller engraved on the back.

Great Americans like Helen Keller come in a variety of political packages.