As of January 2015[update], the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) had validated the longevity claims of 782 American supercentenarians.
[1][needs update] As of February 14, 2025, it lists the oldest living American as Naomi Whitehead (born in Georgia on September 26, 1910, and now residing in Greenville, Pennsylvania), aged 114 years, 141 days.
[2] The longest-lived person ever from the United States is Sarah Knauss, of Hollywood, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, who died on December 30, 1999, aged 119 years and 97 days.
[44] Domingues was a missionary from the Church of the Nazarene in Cape Verde and other parts of Africa, and also a religious preacher when she lived in Massachusetts, as well as an expert seamstress.
[44] Domingues was a firm believer in the American Dream, was deeply religious, had conservative political views and was a pen pal of former President of the United States Ronald Reagan.
[44] Domingues died at a nursing home in the San Diego, California, area on August 21, 2002, at age 114 years and 183 days.
She grew up in Peekskill, New York, where her family ran the Albert Hotel, and as a young woman once met then U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
Already a supercentenarian and the oldest person in Arizona, Benkner returned to Ohio to live in North Lima with her sister Tillie O'Hare, her youngest sibling.
[51] Benkner survived her sister by only four months, and died at age 114 years and 180 days, after a brief hospital stay in Youngstown, Ohio.
Emma Verona Johnston (née Calhoun; August 6, 1890 – December 1, 2004) was an American supercentenarian who was born in Indianola, Iowa, to a large family.
Bettie Antry Wilson (née Rutherford; September 13, 1890 – February 13, 2006)[57] was thought to be the oldest living person in the United States from December 2004 until the subsequent verification of Elizabeth Bolden.
He died on November 19, 12 days before his 114th birthday,[59] and was succeeded as the world's oldest man by Emiliano Mercado del Toro.
[65] Francis attempted to join the army in World War I, but was rejected for service in 1918 as being too short and small (he weighed only about 100 pounds [45 kg]).
[61] Bernice Madigan (née Emerson; July 24, 1899 – January 3, 2015) was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts,[5][66][67] and moved to Cheshire when she was six.
[68] In 1918, after graduating from Adams High School,[68][69] she responded to government drives to recruit women into employment during WWI, and moved to Washington, D.C.[66] After the war, she worked as a secretary for the Department of the Treasury and the Veterans Administration.
[77][78] Eva Chavka Rivka "Evelyn" Kozak (née Jacobson) (August 14, 1899 – June 11, 2013)[79][80] was an American Jewish supercentenarian,[81][82][83][84] born in New York City to Isaac and Kate Jacobson, who fled from the Russian Empire, and the oldest verified Jewish person in history from November 6, 2012, 12 weeks after turning 113, when she broke fellow German-born American Adelheid Kirschbaum's record of 113 years and 83 days though until August 27, 2014, when fellow Russian-born American Goldie Steinberg (born October 30, 1900), who was the oldest living Jewish person after her death, broke her record.
Kozak died of a heart attack at a hospital in Brooklyn, New York City, early in the morning of Tuesday June 11, 2013[when?]
Welford died at Parkview Manor Health Care Center in Humboldt, on November 14, 1992, at the age of 117 years, 66 days.