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Which president has seen the biggest improvement in historian rankings?
Executive summary
There is no single, universally accepted answer in the available reporting about which U.S. president has seen the largest improvement in historian rankings; different surveys and time frames highlight different leaders. For example, Siena College Research Institute tracking shows Franklin D. Roosevelt and George Washington frequently at the top in recent cycles (Siena: FDR top in 2022; Washington top in 2018) while C-SPAN reporting highlights notable rises for Ulysses S. Grant in certain categories since 2000 [1] [2].
1. What “biggest improvement” means — multiple metrics, multiple surveys
“Biggest improvement” can mean different things: movement in overall ordinal rank across repeated full surveys, gains in particular score categories (like “equal justice”), or rehabilitations in scholarly reputation over decades. The Siena College Research Institute runs periodic multi-decade surveys (1982–2022) that produce overall rankings and show shifting positions among presidents [1]. C-SPAN’s historians’ survey reports both total scores and category-by-category changes (for example, Grant’s rise in the “Pursued Equal Justice for All” category) and thus can identify big gains on specific measures even when overall rank changes are modest [2].
2. Examples noted in the reporting: Grant, George W. Bush, and others
C-SPAN’s materials single out Ulysses S. Grant as a president with clear increases in at least one category: since 2000, Grant rose by +12 points in the “Pursued Equal Justice for All” category, which commentators flagged as among the largest category-level gains [2]. Separate reporting and scholarly surveys also note that George W. Bush moved upward in some Siena and SCRI comparisons — for instance, scholars rated him much lower in earlier cycles and he improved position in later Siena/SCRI rounds [3] [1]. The University of Houston–hosted Presidential Greatness Project notes reputational shifts across multiple presidencies, mentioning that some presidents’ reputations “change significantly” across survey waves (notably Ulysses S. Grant and others) [4].
3. Why different surveys point to different “biggest improvers”
Survey methodology, sample composition, and the time window determine who looks like the biggest improver. Siena’s long-running SCRI series repeats roughly every presidential cycle and aggregates historians’ and political scientists’ judgments, yielding one view of rank shifts over decades [1]. C-SPAN’s historian survey emphasizes ten leadership categories and shows gains in categories rather than only overall rank; that produces different headline winners [2]. Other projects (e.g., the Presidential Greatness Project reported by the University of Houston) use different panels and scoring systems and thus spotlight different upward movers [4].
4. Limitations in the available reporting
Available sources do not provide a single longitudinal table that lists every president’s net change across all major scholarly surveys combined, so a definitive, evidence-backed “largest improvement overall” across all historian rankings is not present in the materials you provided (not found in current reporting). The sources highlight specific examples (Grant’s category gains, George W. Bush’s positional improvement in some SCRI cycles) but do not claim a universal, cross-survey champion [2] [3] [1] [4].
5. Competing interpretations and hidden agendas to watch for
Different organizations have different goals: SCRI aims to track reputations over presidential cycles, C-SPAN emphasizes leadership categories useful for media presentation, and academic projects may reflect disciplinary perspectives; these institutional choices shape which changes are emphasized and why [1] [2] [4]. Media summaries sometimes simplify complex, category-level changes into one-line narratives (“so-and-so has risen in the rankings”), which can overstate or mislead about the magnitude or breadth of improvement unless the underlying metric is specified [2] [1].
6. How you could pin down a definitive answer
To name one president as having the “biggest improvement,” a researcher would need to: (a) choose a single metric (overall rank, total score, or category gain), (b) pick a consistent set of repeated surveys (e.g., SCRI 1982–2022, C-SPAN 2000–2021, Presidential Greatness Project), and (c) compute net changes across those waves. The available sources show the pieces of that puzzle — SCRI’s repeated rankings, C-SPAN’s category gains, and academic project findings — but they stop short of providing the consolidated calculation that would settle the question definitively [1] [2] [4].
If you want, I can compile a focused comparison next: select one survey (SCRI or C-SPAN) and I’ll extract the largest movers across its waves and present a ranked list with citations.