Images Flashcards
(28 cards)
What is this Image?
Event: 1893 Chicago World’s Fair
Architect: Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmstead
General Details: The Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 was meant to showcase the technological advancements and cultural diversity of the late 19th century. It was built to be very grand, including impressive classical architecture, with white paint coating the entire exhibition. This caused Chicago to be known as the “White City,” where staff (a form of spray paint) was used to efficiently paint buildings.
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Message: The United States’ intrinsic welcomeness towards immigrants of all backgrounds
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Anti-Immigrant sentiment and nativism is still present in the United States, as for Uncle Sam’s visceral denial of the shaggy immigrant
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Significance: This image represents the conflict between large businesses and peasants in America, and as shown on the horses of both opponents, each side had advantages and disadvantages at play. The big businesses had most of the advantages granted by the government, and the only tool that the peasants had at play were their numbers.
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Artist: Jacob Riis
Significance: The slums, which many poor people lingered about during the Gilded Age, were breeding grounds for crime and criminal behavior.
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Artist: Lewis Hine
Significance: Lewis Hine’s striking photograph of a depressed child looking out of a factory window represents the extra challenges which children involved in child labor had to face, being confined to the constraints of additional work. The child may be looking out the window at other children, showing how poorer childrens’ development were sacrificed for the needs of their family.
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Significance: Represents American expansion into indigenous territories in the west. The storm represents how the people were uncivilized and the land was unknown. Manifest Destiny became a classic American painting because of its artistic brilliance, unjust glorification of western growth, and denial of indigenous rights.
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Significance: The Annexation of Hawaii: It shows a wedding where Uncle Sam is being forced into marriage with a lady named ‘Hawaii’ by President McKinley.
Message: The annexation of Hawaii was a very controversial issue among Americans, as some believed the expansion should not be performed due to Hawaii’s anonymity and others did not want to promote American ideals abroad and preferred to support a policy of isolationism. McKinley, in the picture, is forcing Hawaii into marriage with the US, giving light to these people’s fears about the annexation.
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Significance: This image depicts Yellow Journalism, a form of media spread during the late 19th century and early 20th century which exaggerated aspects of writing in order to hook and retain attention. This was particularly prevalent during the Spanish American war, which encouraged many Americans to favor steep military action against the Spanish over thought out diplomacy, ultimately being a contributing factor in the war’s severity.
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Imagery: Uses exaggerated imagery in an attempt to invoke vehement emotions into the viewer. The Germans are seen as an angry ape, representing their unparalleled aggression and the United States’ new hatred. Meanwhile, the allies are portrayed as an undressed woman, showing innocence and helplessness.
Message: This exaggerated imagery is being used to try to corral people against the Germans and get them to enlist in the army in world war 1.
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Message: This is a depiction of the World War 1 peace talks, where Wilson (representing the US), despite being very involved in the war as a whole, is orchestrating the diplomatic process. He is attempting to create the League of Nations and establish his agenda of “14 peacekeeping goals.” But, the members of the entente and their allies are also in the talks and they want their own desires (as seen with the guns in their pockets). This image is trying to show the process and corruption behind the ww1 peace talks, and how both the United States’ ideas for peace and diplomatic leaders were unqualified for the international stage.
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Name: Chrysler Building
Style: Art Deco
Attributes: 1. Architecture which’s elements point toward the sky, showing upwards momentum
2. Does not have major breaks in the design: an attempt to portray the building as tall
3. Geometric decoration on the building aligns with the art deco goal of modernism
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Artist: Grant Wood
Meaning: This is American Gothic, which depicts a traditional rural American family. While many of the young were migrating to the cities, particularly to search for better employment opportunities, old and traditional families preferred to remain in rural areas.
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Artist: Thomas Hart Benton - America Today
Significance: America Today is a huge mural, showcasing many depictive scenes from American life all throughout the 1920s. It is in a somewhat cartoonish and exaggerated style, showcasing optimism of the current generation.
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Artist: Dorothea Lange
Significance: Dorothea Lange was an American activist photographer who took pictures of many scenes which capture the essence of poor American life. This is an example of that, where a mother who is in a tent with 7 children is seen with intense emotions of anxiety, hopelessness, worry, and disgust, truly capturing the American experience of the great depression.
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Artist: Pablo Picasso - Guernica
Significance: This painting was made after German civilian bombing occured in the city of Guernica, one of the first signs of the Nazis’ brutality which would be later to come. Pablo Picasso used Cubism, an art form which rearranges and distorts elements of things (in this case people), which helped to capture the turmoil, panic, and terror that took place during the German bombings. The bombings, despite their scale and effect, were simply used as military practice, where Germans would intervene slightly in the Spanish Civil War to favor the fascist party.
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Significance: This picture was taken during a massive German parade. Commonly held by Hitler to project Nazi power and morale, these parades provided a spectacle which would disseminate an idea of glory to the outside world and would additionally indoctrinate young German children indo the regime, hypnotizing them with power and then poisoning them with Nazi ideals.
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Artist: Albert Speer
Significance: This image shows a model made by Albert Speer for a redesigned version of Berlin. Speer included incredible and huge instances of architecture in his design, which represented the method Germans used to build loyalty and awe toward the Nazi regime. One example of this architecture was a Nazi government building, which included a dome so large it would not be physically possible to construct it.
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Artist: Albert Speer
Significance: This image shows a model made by Albert Speer for a redesigned version of Berlin. Speer included incredible and huge instances of architecture in his design, which represented the method Germans used to build loyalty and awe toward the Nazi regime. One example of this architecture was a Nazi government building, which included a dome so large it would not be physically possible to construct it.
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Artist: Robert Capa
Significance: Taken during D-Day. The photograph looks incredibly rushed because of heavy German threat.
Story: The film processor messed up the photo so it looks blurrier than it actually should be. While removing the sense of clarity from the photo, this does help to add the intensity of the situation.
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Artist: Ben Shawn
Event: FDR’s Death
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Significance: Roman Ciezelwicz’s Superman accurately summarizes the political dynamic of the Cold War. Both the United States and Soviet Union are shown as mirror images of Superman, showing how both countries felt as heroic, while envisioning the other nation as enemies. This was a common principle which was held throughout the duration of the conflict, where countries would spread their seemingly justified influence and encourage allies to do the same in the perception that they were improving the geopolitical state of the world.
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Significance: This piece of Soviet propaganda against the United States depicts the Statue of Liberty with a visible stain piercing the image of liberty the state was intended to display. The stain on the cheek of the Statue of Liberty, along with representing other racial motivations, shows the beating and harassment of African Americans, particularly from police. The Russians are attempting to highlight the racial discrimination present within America, trying to raise support for the Soviet’s efforts against the Americans, discourage immigrants from migrating to the United States, and taint the American image overall.
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Artist: Norman Rockwell
Significance: The Problem we all Live With by Norman Rockwell references racial integration into school, and how much backlash was received against it. In many instances, particularly in the South, federal troops had to intervene in order to enforce the integration of African American students into schools. The image’s perspective is ambiguous, as it could either be taken from a violent protester, who is opposed to racial integration, or a bystander, whose problem is the backlash innocent students are receiving.
