So two down. Yes, I know that there will be some white people complaining about Florida’s all black lineup, perhaps saying that there are plenty of famous white Floridians, too. However, I didn’t compile these Mount Rushmore sets based on race. And it’s just turned out that the figures I had for Florida had accomplishments that can’t possibly be ignored. The fact they’re black is just a coincidence. Anyway, in this selection, I bring you the Mount Rushmores from Hawaii to Iowa. From Hawaii hails a Chinese cop who inspired a popular detective, an explorer who rediscovered a lost Inca citadel, and two Hawaiian monarchs. Then we’re off to Idaho where you’ll meet 4 people whose accomplishments weren’t small potatoes like an FBI agent who brought down a US president, a guy who invented television, a literary expatriate, and a lady guide for Lewis and Clark. Next, it’s on to Illinois where you have a great emancipator, one of the best known gangsters in Prohibition, a pioneer in social work, and a libertarian Nobel Prize winning economist. After that is Indiana where you’ll find a Depression Era rock star criminal, a pioneer in human sexuality, a journalist who wrote about the little guy, and a the biggest name in Progressive Era Socialism. Finally, you have Iowa where you’ll meet the guy behind one of the most famous American paintings, a man who had a Wild West show, a highly noted conservationist, and perhaps the best known big band leader of all time.

 

11. Hawaii

Figure 1: Chang Apana– Chinese Hawaiian member of the Honolulu Police Department for 34 years as an officer and detective who was acknowledged by Earl Derr Biggers as the inspiration for Charlie Chan. Was successful in solving many cases due to his fluency in several languages, his wide network of informants, and meticulous detective style.

Figure 2: Hiram Bingham III– explorer, academic, and politician who made public the existence of the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911 with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. Later became a US Senator.

Figure 3: Kamehameha I– established the Kingdom of Hawaii after uniting most of the islands through conquest as well as developed alliances with the major Pacific colonial powers which preserved Hawaii’s independence under his rule. Remembered for the Kānāwai Māmalahoe, the “Law of the Splintered Paddle”, which protects human rights of non-combatants in times of battle.

Figure 4: Liliʻuokalani– last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1891-1893 when she was deposed and Hawaii was annexed to the US. Was also an accomplished author with her book Hawaiʻi’s Story by Hawaiʻi’s Queen as well as songwriter and musician who wrote the “Aloha Oe” which is Hawaii’s state song.

 

12. Idaho

Figure 1: W. Mark Felt– FBI Special Agent who rose to the Bureau’s Associate Director and was the Watergate scandal’s whistleblower referred to as “Deep Throat” in which he provided the Washington Post with critical information that eventually led to Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. His involvement with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein was kept a secret for nearly 30 years. It is alleged he blew the whistle on Watergate as revenge against Nixon for passing him over for Bureau Director that he thought he deserved and giving it L. Patrick Gray whom he resented and didn’t think was up for the job.

Figure 2: Philo Farnsworth– inventor and TV pioneer who made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television. Perhaps best known for his 1927 invention of the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the “image dissector”, as well as the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. Was also the first person to demonstrate such a system to the public. Developed a TV system complete with receiver and camera which he produced commercially in the form of Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation from 1938-1951. Held 300 patents mostly in TV and radio. Later in life, invented a small nuclear fusion device the Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor, or simply “fusor”, employing inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) that has been the acknowledged inspiration for other fusion approaches including the Polywell reactor concept in terms of a general approach to fusion design.

Figure 3: Ezra Pound– expatriate poet and critic as well as major figure in the modernist movement. Contribution to poetry began with his development of Imagism, a movement derived from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language. Helped discover and shape the work of contemporaries T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway. Was responsible for the 1915 publication of Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and the serialization from 1918 of Joyce’s Ulysses, while he was a foreign editor of several American magazines in London. Embraced Benito Mussolini’s Italian fascism during the 1930s and 1940s as well as expressed support for Hitler and wrote for publications owned by British fascist Oswald Mosley as well as made several propaganda speeches against the US, FDR, and the Jews during WWII.

Figure 4: Sacagawea– a Lemhi Shoshone woman who helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition achieve each of its chartered mission objectives exploring the Louisiana Purchase. With the expedition between 1804 and 1806, she traveled thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, establishing cultural contacts with Native American populations, and researched natural history. The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early 20^th century adopted her as a symbol of women’s worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory, and doing much to spread the story of her accomplishments.

 

13. Illinois

Figure 1: Abraham Lincoln– US president who led the country through the American Civil War-its bloodiest war and an event often considered its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy. Key moments in his life are his highly publicized debates against Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Senate election, his election to the presidency in 1860 which sparked the formation of the Confederacy, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, confronting his opponents by pitting them against each other and carefully planned political patronage, appointing Ulysses S. Grant as commander of Union forces, pushing the 13^th Amendment through Congress that outlawed slavery permanently, and his Second Inaugural Address. His Gettysburg Address has become an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as one of the 3 greatest US presidents, if not the greatest president the US has ever had.

Figure 2: Al Capone– gangster who attained fame during the Prohibition Era as the co-founder of the Chicago Outfit of which he reigned as crime boss for 7 years in which he expanded the bootlegging business through increasingly violent means as well as his mutually profitable relationships with mayor William Hale Thompson and the city’s police kept him seemingly safe from law enforcement. Though styled himself as a “modern day Robin Hood” and reveled in media attention, his image would be forever tarnished by the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre which resulted in the killing of 7 rival gang members in broad daylight which led influential citizens to demand government action and newspapers to dub him “Public Enemy No.1.” Details of his reign, his flashy fashion sense, his colorful personality, and eventual fall and imprisonment for tax evasion have made him the most famous American Prohibition gangster of all time.

Figure 3: Jane Addams- pioneer settlement activist/reformer, social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in women’s suffrage and world peace who created the first Hull House in Chicago, co-founded the ACLU, as well as became one of the most prominent reformers of the Progressive Era. Helped turn American issues of concern to mothers, such as needs of children, local public health, and world peace. Became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. Was the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is recognized as the founder of the social work profession.

Figure 4: Milton Friedman– Nobel Prize winning economist for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. His political philosophy extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with minimal intervention. advocated policies such as a volunteer military, freely floating exchange rates, abolition of medical licenses, a negative income tax, ending the Federal Reserve, abolishing Social Security, and school vouchers (with volunteer military being his only good idea). Works include many monographs, books, scholarly articles, papers, magazine columns, television programs, and lectures, and cover a broad range of economic topics and public policy issues. Was an advisor to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Augusto Pinochet. Has been very influential in Republican and Libertarian politics.

 

14. Indiana

Figure 1: John Dillinger– infamous gangster during the Great Depression who operated with a group of men known by some as the Dillinger Gang or Terror Gang that were, among other activities, accused of robbing 24 banks and 4 police stations. Escaped from jail twice. Seen as the most notorious of Depression-era outlaws, standing out among more violent criminals like Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde. Courted publicity by styling himself as a Robin Hood figure and the media ran exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality, causing the government to demand federal action. As a result, J. Edgar Hoover developed a more sophisticated FBI as a weapon against organized crime using him and his gang as his campaign platform.

Figure 2: Alfred Kinsey– biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and sexologist who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Best known for writing Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female which are also known as the Kinsey Reports as well as the Kinsey Scale. While research on human sexuality, foundational to the field of sexology, provoked controversy in the 1940s and 1950s, his work has influenced cultural values in the US and worldwide.

Figure 3: Ernie Pyle– journalist who as a roving correspondent for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, earned wide acclaim for his accounts of ordinary people and later of ordinary American soldiers during WWII, lending the same folksy style to his war-time reports before being killed by enemy fire on lejima during the Battle of Okinawa. Syndicated column ran in more than 300 newspapers nationwide and at the time of his death he was among the best known American war correspondents as well as won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his spare, poignant accounts of “dogface” infantry soldiers from a first person perspective. Harry Truman wrote of him, “No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen.”

Figure 4: Eugene V. Debs– union leader who was one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and 5 time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, once running his 1920 presidential campaign from prison. His candidacies and work with labor movements led him to become one of the best known Socialists in America. Helped motivate the American Left as a measure of political opposition to corporations and WWI. Honored by socialists, communists, and anarchists for his compassion for the labor movement and his motivation to have the average working man build socialism without large state involvement. Has been cited as the inspiration for numerous politicians.

 

15. Iowa

Figure 1: Grant Wood– painter best known for his paintings depicting the American Midwest, particularly American Gothic which has become the iconic painting of the 20^th century. His painting Foundation in Education is on Iowa’s state quarter.

Figure 2: William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody– scout, bison hunter, and showman who became a Pony Express rider at 14, served for the Union during the American Civil War, and was a civilian scout for the US Army during the Indian Wars for which he received a Medal of Honor. One of the most colorful figures of the American West, he founded Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1883 which provided education and entertainment about bronco riding, handling bovine and equine livestock, roping, and other herdsman skills seen in present day rodeos. Despite that he’s said to have killed 4,282 bison in 18 months and the cultural western myths his shows projected that have now become part of the American Western ethos, he was said to respect Native Americans and support their rights as well as believed in conservation and equal pay for women.

Figure 3: Aldo Leopold– author, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist who is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac which has sold more than 2 million copies. Influential in the development of environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation. His ethics on nature and wildlife preservation had a profound impact on the environmental movement with his ecocentric and holistic ethics regarding land. Emphasized biodiversity and ecology and was the founder of the science of wildlife management.

Figure 4: Glenn Miller– musician, arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era who was a bestselling recording artist and led one of the best known big bands. Recordings include “In the Mood”, “Moonlight Serenade”, “Pennsylvania 6-5000”, “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, “A String of Pearls”, “At Last”, “(I’ve Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo”, “American Patrol”, “Tuxedo Junction”, “Elmer’s Tune”, and “Little Brown Jug.” Also known for his plane disappearing over the English Channel which has given rise to many conspiracy theories (though in reality it was due to bad weather, pilot error, and mechanical failure).