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Politics

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To Versailles, To Versailles!

The women who arrived, though lightly armed, were no shrinking violets. They insisted that the royal family return to Paris where, in fact, they would find themselves under virtual house arrest.

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Mea Culpa of the Pope

Although the revolutionaries long regarded the Pope as an enemy, their anger was stoked significantly by the papal decision to decree as unacceptable the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.

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The Great Nausea of Monsignor

This engraving focuses on expurgating the clergy, this time with vomiting as the intended method. Here, the cleric spits up the unfair advantages enjoyed in the old regime.

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Women's Union Telegram

That women in significant numbers were active participants in the Puerto Rican labor movement of the 1930s did not escape the attention of the government. Women’s unions demanded their rights through political channels as well as protest and striking.

Facial Recognition Manual
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Facial Recognition Manual

If they wanted to keep out spies, security personnel on both sides of the Berlin Wall had to become sophisticated readers of facial features.

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Berlin Wall Trabant

This painting by Birgit Kinder is on a segment of the Berlin Wall that was on the east bank of the Spree River that separated portions of East and West Berlin.

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Patience Monsignor Your Turn Will Come

Cartoons attacked the refractory clergy. Here, fat, overfed, and underworked clergy are squeezed down to an appropriate size. As elsewhere, visual images mocked the clergy by depicting them as subject to the threats and physical attacks of others.

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Refractory (Clergy) Going to the Promised Land

Many refractory clergy left France to join other detractors, as this print shows, or wishfully encourages. However, this is an ambiguous image, which leaves open the possibility that rather than joining foreign monarchies, the clergy are crossing the river leading to Hell.

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Procession of Refractory Clergy

Of particular interest in this caricature of refractory clergy here are the long noses, traditionally used to caricature Jews, that suggest the refractory clergy were not of the people. This image shows resistant clergy marching in their last procession.

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The Roman Aristocrat

The fattened clergyman and the well–bedecked nobleman go off unbothered while the figure in the foreground assesses carefully the value of a commoner. This complex image also includes a pig—likely a symbol for Louis XVI—with the cleric and the noble.