Writers from Wisconsin Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pepin

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in Pepin on February 7, 1867. She spent her early years in Wisconsin on a farm in Pepin County, and recounts those days in "Little House in the Big Woods" (1932). That was the first of eight books in her "Little House" series.

The Ingalls family moved from Wisconsin to Missouri, then returned when they learned their land was Indian territory. At 7, Laura moved to Minnesota, near Walnut Grove. When she was twelve, they settled in DeSmet, Dakota Territory, today South Dakota. That is where she met her husband, Almonzo Wilder.

Between 1894 and her death in 1957, Wilder lived on Mansfield, Missouri.

Answer: American History

Stephen Ambrose, who grew up in Whitewater and graduated from the University of Wisconsin, was a noted historian. He wrote biographies of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. However, his primary interest was military history.

His "Band of Brothers" (1992) is one of the best books about the Second World War, and was turned into an Emmy Award winning miniseries by Tom Hanks. Ambrose won an Emmy Award for his writing on the mini-series.

Lewis and Clark was another interest of Ambrose. "Undaunted Courage" (1996) and "The Vast Land" (2003) both deal with the explorers. Ambrose wrote 27 books over the course of his career. He died in October 2002.

Answer: 1893

Frederick Jackson Turner was one of the foremost historians of the 20th century. His "Frontier Thesis" helped to shape most writing about US history over the last century. And it created new political phrases such as "The New Frontier."

Turner's basic thesis, which he released in 1893, was that the westward expansion of the United States had shaped the character of the country, making it more democratic. Turner's version is obviously very Euro-centric. Native Americans might have a different interpretation of how expansion shaped the character of the country.

Turner was born in Portage in 1861. Turner spent 20 years at the University of Wisconsin, where he did his most significant writing, before moving to Harvard. Not only was Turner an important writer, but he was a significant mentor to some of the more significant historians of the 20th century, such as Merle Curti, Herbert Bolton, and Carl Becker.

Answer: horses

"King of the Wind" (1948), which won the Newberry Medal and "Misty of Chincoteague" (1947), which was a Newberry runner-up, are both about horses. While Henry did write about dogs, cats, and mules, horses were her primary love.

Marguerite Henry was born in Milwaukee in 1902. She studied at Milwaukee Teachers College, now UW-Milwaukee. She published her first book in 1940 and, over the course of a 50 year career, wrote 59 children's books. She wrote her last book, "Brown Sunshine of Sawdust Valley" (1992), at the age of 90. Henry died in November 1997.

Answer: environmentalism

Aldo Leopold was born in Iowa in 1887, but spent the last several decades of his life in Wisconsin as a professor of forestry at the University of Wisconsin. He is most noted for "A Sand County Almanac" (1949), a key text in the history of environmentalism. Sand County refers to the area of Central Wisconsin where Leopold had a farm.

John Muir was born in Scotland, but emigrated to the United States as a youth. He was in Wisconsin from 1849 to 1863. Muir developed his love of botany and nature at the University of Wisconsin. He would spend the rest of his life on protecting natural resources. His biggest contribution was the creation of the Sierra Club in 1892, which remains one of the nation's most important environmental groups.

Muir is known as "The Father of National Parks" and played a major role in protecting areas such as Yosemite Valley in California. Muir wrote extensively about his travels around the United States and the country's natural wonders. He died in Los Angeles in 1914.

Answer: Emil Seidel

Sandburg worked for Socialist mayor Emil Seidel, who was elected in 1910 in a Socialist sweep on elections in Milwaukee. Seidel made many reforms, helping to clean up city government, creating the city parks system, and establishing the police and fire commission and the public works department. Seidel was defeated in 1912, but helped pave the way for future Socialist mayors.

Daniel Hoan served from 1916 to 1940, and Frank Zeidler served from 1948 to 1960. Both are viewed as some of the best mayors Milwaukee ever had, and they instituted numerous reforms to improve the city. David Rose was the corrupt Democratic who preceded Seidel in office.

Sandburg had been attracted to Milwaukee precisely because of its Socialist politics, and lived there from 1903 to 1912, working as a journalist before becoming Seidel's secretary. While he left Wisconsin in 1912, Sandburg said Milwaukee was the place where he found his bearings and it set up the course of the rest of his life.

Carl Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize for both his poetry and his autobiography of Abraham Lincoln. He was born in Illinois in 1878 and died in North Carolina in 1967. His home in North Carolina is a National Historical Site. Sandburg is closely associated with Chicago, where he moved following his time in Milwaukee.

Answer: Our Town

Wilder won Two Pulitzers for his plays: "Our Town" in 1938 and "The Skin of our Teeth" in 1942. "Our Town" tells the story of the fictional community of Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, between 1901 and 1913. The play was first performed on Broadway in 1938 and has had several revivals since, including one with Paul Newman as Stage Manager.

Thornton Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in April 1897. He only spent part of his childhood in Wisconsin. He graduated from both Yale (BA) and Princeton (MA) before starting his writing career. He won his first Pulitzer in 1927 for "The Bridge at San Luis Rey." He wrote one screenplay for the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943). Wilder died in Connecticut in December 1975.

Answer: So Big

Ferber won for "So Big" (1924), which is about a young woman named Selina Peak De Jong. Selina gets married, is widowed, and raises her son, who turns out to be a major disappointment. "So Big" has been brought to screen several times: the 1932 film started Barbara Stanwyck and the 1953 version starred Jane Wyman.

"Show Boat" (1926), "Cimarron" (1930), and "Saratoga Trunk" (1941) were all made into motion pictures. The 1936 version of "Show Boat" featured Paul Robeson. "Cimarron", which is about the Oklahoma Land Rush, was made into a film, and won one of the early Academy Awards for Best Picture. "Saratoga Trunk" (1945) starred Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman.

Edna Ferber was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1897. She graduated from high school and attended Lawrence University in Appleton. She was a reporter at the 1920 Democratic and Republican conventions. She left journalism to become a novelist. She wrote a dozen novels and eight plays. Ferber died in New York in 1968 at the age of 82.

Answer: Economics

Thorstein Veblen was an important economist and sociologist. His best known work is "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899), in which he came up with the term "conspicuous consumption." Throughout his career, Veblen was a leading critic of Capitalism, which did not help his chances for advancement.

Veblen was born in Cato, Wisconsin, a small town in Manitowac County, in July 1857. He was in Wisconsin until he left for college at Carleton in Minnesota. He attended Johns Hopkins and Yale before pursing an academic career. He taught at both the University of Chicago and Stanford. Veblen was one of the founders of The New School in New York City in 1929. The economist died in August 1929.

Answer: Psycho

"Psycho" (1960), one of Hitchcock's best films, tells the story of a young woman who embezzles money and encounters a psychotic serial killer. It stars Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the 1959 novel by Robert Bloch.

In a bizarre case of life imitating art, while Bloch was writing "Psycho" Ed Gein was arrested for the serial killing of several women. Bloch said "Psycho" was almost completed when Gein was arrested. Gein also served as the basis for Buffalo Bill in "Silence of the Lambs" (1991).

Bloch was born in Chicago, but moved to Milwaukee when he was twelve. He spent much of his early writing career in Milwaukee, before moving to Weyauwgea in 1953. Bloch was one of the most prolific science fiction and horror writers of the 20th century. He won numerous awards, including the Hugo and Edgar Allan Poe, and many of his books and stories were adapted for the screen. Bloch died in Los Angeles in September 1994 after battling cancer.

"Vertigo" (1958) was based on a novel by by Pierre Boileau Thomas Narcejac. "Rear Window" (1954) is based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich. And "The Birds" (1963) is from the novel by Daphne du Maurier.