Q 01/05

Which future president beat frontier Methodist preacher Peter Cartwright in an 1846 race for Congress?

A) Abraham Lincoln

B) Andrew Johnson

C) Franklin Pierce

D) Millard Fillmore

Answer · why

A) Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln won the Illinois race partly because some voters disliked Cartwright mixing religion with politics. Others were put off by the preache...

Q 02/05

Which snack is named for an 1830s Presbyterian minister who preached temperance, vegetarianism and whole-grain bread?

A) Melba toast

B) Fig Newton

C) Graham cracker

D) Garibaldi biscuit

Answer · why

C) Graham cracker

Graham cracker recalls Sylvester Graham, often called the Father of Vegetarianism in America. Followers and entrepreneurs sold flour, bread and cracke...

Q 03/05

In 1806, Williams College students began America's foreign missions movement while sheltering from a storm under what?

A) A covered bridge

B) A haystack

C) An oak tree

D) A barn roof

Answer · why

B) A haystack

A haystack sheltered the five students, who had met to discuss the spiritual welfare of the people of Asia. Within four years, some of them had set up...

Q 04/05

Which 1801 revival led by Barton W. Stone drew as many as 20,000 settlers to rural Bourbon County?

A) Gasper River

B) Brush Run

C) Red River

D) Cane Ridge

Answer · why

D) Cane Ridge

Cane Ridge may have drawn nearly a tenth of the state's recorded 1800 population over one week. Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist ministers all took...

Q 05/05

Western New York saw so many waves of revival in the early 1800s that it earned which lasting nickname?

A) Burned-over district

B) Bible Belt

C) Leatherstocking Country

D) North Country

Answer · why

A) Burned-over district

Burned-over district implied a region set ablaze with spiritual fervor. A revivalist's 1876 memoir called it a 'burnt district', and a 1950 history of...