Statue Trivia

You know what we haven't had here in a long time?  A statue trivia question.  So I've reached into my files and found one from a while back.

Who and where? 

Comments

[Bob Strassfeld]

The snow is a helpful hint. Lincoln at the University of Wisconsin?

[Alfred Brophy]

Bob, you're very good. That didn't take you any time at all. As you say, it's Lincoln at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I took this a while back and as I was walking up to the statue I thought, "gosh, that looks like Abraham Lincoln!" But I wasn't expecting him in Wisconsin.

[Steven Lubet]

The Republican Party was founded in Ripon, Wisconsin, so there is that connection.

[Prange]

Lincoln served in the Illinois militia in Wisconsin during the Blackhawk War.

Chief Blackhawk brought his retreating tribe through what is now Madison during the war, pursued by US forces.

[cm]

Tulsa Tribune editor Richard Lloyd Jones, one of the players in the Tulsa riots of 1921, is credited with bringing the Lincoln statue--a copy of the one in the town square in Lincoln's birthplace, Hodgenville, Ky--to Bascom Hill. Although Jones received both his undergrad and graduate degrees in law from the University of Chicago, he attended UW from 1893-1894. In 1905 Jones, then an editor with Collier's Weekly, acted as an agent for Robert Collier and purchased the Lincoln farm in Hodgenville. Collier's then spearheaded the drive to raise money and transform the farm into a national historic site, eventually creating the Lincoln Farm Association of New York to develop the project. A member of the association board, Jones was apparently instrumental in selecting artist Adolph Alexander Weinman to design the statue for the Hodgenville site. (Weinman also created the marble friezes in the courtroom of the US Supreme Court.) Several places vied for a replica of the statue but Jones successfully lobbied Weinman to choose the University of Wisconsin. Perhaps the developing reputation of cousin Frank Lloyd Wright, who had also lived in Madison and briefly attended UW, helped his cause. Jones left Collier's a few years later, bought the Wisconsin State Journal, and moved to Madison.

By 1919 he had transformed from a friend and supporter of Wisconsin Sen. Robert La Follette to a fairly constant critic so he relocated to a more congenial community in Tulsa. In 1921 Jones, now owner and editor of the Tulsa Tribune, apparently wrote an incendiary editorial about what turned out to be a false allegation that a young black man had attacked a young white woman-- the incident that set off the events that led to the 1921 riots that devastated Tulsa's black community.

As most people reading this know, the Tulsa story and its repercussions are examined in Prof. Brophy's Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation and mentioned in previous Lounge posts.

(http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2012/04/misunderstanding-the-tulsa-riot.html)

(http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2010/09/some-old-essays.html)

[cm]

Tulsa Tribune editor Richard Lloyd Jones, one of the players in the Tulsa riots of 1921, is credited with bringing the Lincoln statue--a copy of the one in the town square in Lincoln's birthplace, Hodgenville, Ky--to Bascom Hill. Although Jones received both his undergrad and graduate degrees in law from the University of Chicago, he attended UW from 1893-1894. In 1905 Jones, then an editor with Collier's Weekly, acted as an agent for Robert Collier and purchased the Lincoln farm in Hodgenville. Collier's then spearheaded the drive to raise money and transform the farm into a national historic site, eventually creating the Lincoln Farm Association of New York to develop the project. A member of the association board, Jones was apparently instrumental in selecting artist Adolph Alexander Weinman to design the statue for the Hodgenville site. (Weinman also created the marble friezes in the courtroom of the US Supreme Court.) Several cities andorganizations vied for a replica of the statue but Jones successfully lobbied Weinman to choose the University of Wisconsin. Perhaps the growing reputation of cousin Frank Lloyd Wright, who had also lived in Madison and briefly attended UW, helped his cause. Jones left Collier's a few years later, bought the Wisconsin State Journal, and moved to Madison.

By 1919 he had transformed from a friend and supporter of Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette to a fairly constant critic so he relocated to a more congenial community in Tulsa. In 1921 Jones, now owner and editor of the Tulsa Tribune, apparently wrote an incendiary editorial about what turned out to be a false allegation that a young Black man had attacked a young white woman-- the incident that set off the events that led to the 1921 riots that devastated Tulsa's black community.

As most people reading this know, the Tulsa story and its repercussions are examined in Prof. Brophy's Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation and mentioned in previous Lounge posts.

(http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2012/04/misunderstanding-the-tulsa-riot.html)

(http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2010/09/some-old-essays.html)

[Alfred Brophy]

CM, thanks for the history of the Lincoln statue and for Richard Lloyd Jones' role in this. I knew nothing about that. Thanks, too, for the kind words about Reconstructing the Dreamland.

[cm]

Of course, I should have said that the Tribune's report of an attack played a part in setting off the events that led to the riot since no editorial has ever been found.

Another bit of incongruous trivia--Jones published an annual compilation of the weekly "sermonettes" he wrote for the Tribune. When Ida Tarbel wrote asking for comments on her Lincoln serial in McClure's magazine Jones sent her the 1921 collection. He had titled it "Brother of Men" after the lead sermonette on Lincoln. Unlike the Tribune pages covering the alleged attack, the sermons are still available.