Oberlin College’s Jacob D. Cox administration building contains several significant tributes to its namesake, one of the Union’s best “citizen-generals.” The entrance to the building, financed by Cox’s son, J.D. Cox III, contains: 1) a brass plate commemorating Cox’s many achievements, and 2) two paintings by another of Cox’s sons, Kenyon.
Kenyon Cox is famous for his classical murals, many of which are on the walls of the Library of Congress, and he painted these classical images as tributes to his parents. As his biographer put it, “Cox caught his own view of his father a reserved, dignified, and important, yet thoughtful and caring. And his mother was a personal symbol of the values he attributed to idealized women. He saw her as a true helper to his father and a sustaining force for heer children. But she was an independent personality.”
GENE SCHMIEL, CIVIL WAR HISTORIAN, AUTHOR, AND LECTURER 