Questionable Historic Sites Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nathan Bedford Forrest

Although Forrest was certainly a capable commander, Loewen makes the case that the motivation behind most of these monuments was not to recognize his military heroism. Rather, they are a surreptitious way to recognize Forrest for his postwar activities: the general went on to found the Ku Klux Klan.

As an aside, it is difficult to believe that there are more monuments to Forrest in Tennessee than there are to Lincoln in Illinois, where most towns have several statues or museum exhibits honoring the sixteenth president. Most of Forrest's markers are more modest than Lincoln's, however; those who memorialize the Great Emancipator tend to choose bronze, while many admirers of Forrest seem to prefer fiberglass.

Answer: The entire story is almost certainly false, since there is no reliable evidence that a massacre of this nature ever occurred anywhere near Almo

No nineteenth-century source mentions anything like this episode, which would have been (by a wide margin) the largest Indian attack in the history of the west had it actually occurred. The earliest recounting of this story dates from 1927, and the monument was erected largely to promote tourism in the region, which boasts a number of underpublicized natural wonders.

By the time the monument was dedicated in 1938, the image of Indians wantonly massacring westbound wagon trains had become ingrained in American popular culture, and the monument was eminently believable to its intended audiences.

Answer: The identity of the attackers; the emigrants were killed by Latter-Day Saints (Mormons).

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was the culmination of years of hostilities between the Latter-Day Saints and California-bound emigrants. Many Mormons felt a natural antipathy toward Midwesterners on the wagon trains, as the Latter-Day Saints had previously been forcibly driven from Illinois and Missouri. Many Mormons also resented the damage done to their property by the wagon trains, and would often refuse to sell the emigrants supplies, further aggravating the situation. The Mountain Meadows episode saw the Mormons and their Paiute allies battle the emigrants for four days, then offer safe passage to end hostilities. Once the emigrants had abandoned their defensive positions, they were massacred; the only survivors were seventeen children. President Buchannan dispatched the cavalry to Utah in response, but this expedition was stalled by an early winter which rendered the already rugged Utah terrain impassable, and cooler heads eventually prevailed. Of course, a monument detailing such an atrocity would not be well-liked in present-day Utah, so the attackers' identities are conveniently absent from the monument.

One thing that Loewen does not address is whether or not the several attacks on the Latter-Day Saints in the Eastern and Midwestern United States are adequately memorialized. Perhaps someone familiar with these some of these sites could drop me a line?

Answer: They cut off the sculpture's right foot to symbolize how Onate had maimed the surviving males of the Acoma village of Santo Domingo

Oņate's governance of New Mexico was not well-regarded by the Spanish of his time. At the end of his term, he was harshly reprimanded and banished from New Mexico. Particularly troubling to Oņate's superiors was how he dealt with an Acoma uprising early in his term.

In retaliation for an Acoma attack on Spanish traders, which included the killing of Oņate's nephew, Oņate launched an offensive against the Acomas, killing hundreds. Surviving girl children were sent to Mexico City to be raised in convents, and surviving adult males (only about two dozen) had their right feet amputated.

The Pueblo attack on the monument was meant to highlight the negative aspects of Oņate's relations with Native Americans.

Answer: Willa Cather

Many of Cather's books, including "My Antonia" and "O Pioneers!", make wonderful use of Nebraska as a setting. To be fair to Red Cloud, overt acknowledgment of Cather's sexuality would probably be awkward, particularly considering that Cather, who died in 1947, was never an "out" lesbian in the present-day sense of the term, and many legitimate scholars place her homosexuality in doubt. However, she lived with her "longtime companion", Edith Lewis, for the last 40 years of her life, and the majority of scholars feel that her books, which often challenge typical gender behavior, should be read as lesbian fiction, especially "O, Pioneers!". Loewen makes the same case about sites memorializing President James Buchannan, who is believed by many scholars to have been gay, though this is also is disputed among historians.

It is interesting to note that, at least subtly, another Nebraska memorial may acknowledge Cather's homosexuality. Willa Cather Hall, where I lived when attending the University of Nebraska, is connected to Louise Pound Hall, named for another prominent Nebraska writer; the two buildings share a cafeteria and maintenance services. Cather and Pound attended the University together in the 1890s, and are widely reputed to have been lovers.

Answer: It was an American Legion parade advancing on the recently rebuilt Industrial Workers of the World union hall, which the Legion had burned down the year before

The leftist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) had a history of enmity with the American Legion. Many Legionnaires (including the aforementioned Warren Grimm) had fought the Bolsheviks in the 1918 United States invasion of the Soviet Union, and the IWW was seen by most conservatives as a subversive, communist organization. On the occasion memorialized by the statue, Legionnaires broke from the parade and charged the IWW hall. Having been alerted to a possible attack, IWW members fired on the Legion, killing the four men memorialized.

The Legionnaires lynched IWW leader Wesley Everest and sacked the hall. Eight union members were convicted for their role in the affair; no Legionnaires were prosecuted for their actions.

Answer: MVSU is a predominantly African-American university, and Wright ran for national office on a platform that opposed African-American civil rights

Fielding Wright was Strom Thurmond's running mate on the 1948 "Dixiecrat" ticket, a movement of breakaway southern Democrats opposed to President Truman's civil rights initiatives which Wright had denounced as "more dangerous than communism"; these initiatives included such radical provisions as guaranteed suffrage for African-Americans. Though Wright has subsequently been vilified by African-American authors and activists, his name still adorns the one of the largest buildings on a predominantly African-American campus.

Answer: The "George Washington" referred to was a local resident, not the future president

George Washington Square in Centralia, Washington is named for yet another bearer of that name. Thankfully, Centralia makes this clear with a more thoughtfully worded marker than New York's.

Answer: Exclusion of African-Americans

First elected in 1942, Hubbard's 1948 slogan was: "Keep Negroes out of Dearborn". He apparently succeeded. Despite Dearborn's close proximity to Detroit, fewer than twenty African-Americans lived in Dearborn when Hubbard left office in 1978. In Hubbard's own words (in 1956): "We watch it. Every time we hear of a Negro moving in - for instance, we had one last year - we respond quicker than you do to a fire."

Answer: False

This statue, a recasting of the original which now stands in Oahu, is easily the most striking in Statuary Hall. It was created by American sculptor Thomas R. Gould while he was residing in Europe. Although there were indeed many extant portraits of King Kamehameha that captured a semblance of his true appearance, Gould used none of them.

Instead, he created his statue using Roman models, going so far as to dress Kamehameha in a toga and pose him in a traditional Latin posture! Having seen it personally, I can attest that it cuts an impressive figure.

However, it looks nothing like the great unifier of Hawaii.