American Icons 2003 Introduction

In 2003, in celebration of the magazine’s 35th anniversary, Rolling Stone published our first edition of American Icons. The aim, as ever in our coverage, was to highlight the people, inventions, and images that define our times. Some endure, others vanish, but a few make such a profound human connection it is impossible to imagine what life was like without them. Instantly recognizable, venerated, and inimitable, these are some of the icons that transformed our world then — and still reverberate today.