Benjamin Franklinwas the publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette, a respected leader, thinker and inventor in the American colonies, when he published one of his most famous images: A snake, cut into eight pieces, with the words "Join, or Die," under it.
The year was 1754, and Franklin's goal was to unite the disparate colonies into a coalition against a common enemy. Franklin was part of the Albany Congress, a meeting of seven colonies, including Franklin's native Massachusetts and his adopted Pennsylvania. They aimed to negotiate with the Iroquois Confederacy and mitigate the French threat.
The art, likely not Franklin's own, was reprinted in newspapers throughout the colonies, one of the first instances in which the separate British colonies began to think of themselves as a somewhat unified entity. It proved persuasive, if not in this particular instance. It would later become a call for unity against a different enemy: The British government.
It would not be the last time a work of visual art was a form ofpolitical commentary— or a means to protest.
Murals honor George Floyd, Black Lives Matter movement around the world
Printmaking and protest
Printmaking was one early means of disseminating dissent, said Allison Rudnick, a curator atthe Metropolitan Museum of Artin New York City. "It's a mode of art-making that allows for inexpensive ways to be produced and distributed."
The "Join, or Die" woodcut was one "iconic" example, Rudnick said: "It takes a slab of wood, an implement to make impressions, ink and paper. It can be done quickly and easily, and that enables numerous copies." In early American history, periodicals like newspapers and pamphlets were vital sources of news and information, so, she added, they were a conduit to reach larger numbers of people than something more static like a painting or statue or mural.
Paul Revere's engraving depicting the Boston Massacre was another example of using art to persuade people to the Revolutionary cause, Rudnick said. Its composition — British soldiers lined up against Americans, the Americans in chaos as the shots ring out, "sends a very clear message that we are the victims and the British are the aggressors," she said. "People are very responsive to visual images. They can have a really big impact."
The artwork,historians have noted, was not an accurate depiction of what happened — an example of how art and propaganda can intersect as artists seek to persuade their viewers.
Protest art through America's eras
Protest art has evolved, much like the nation itself: The 19th century saw the rise of political cartoons by artists likeThomas Nast, who lampooned political bosses and robber barons, in addition to creating images of icons like Uncle Sam and Santa Claus that endure to this day. During the 1930s and '40s, artists like Glenn Shaw andElizabeth Oldscreated murals that reflected American life, including the struggles of the working-class people like miners and steel workers. America during the 1960s reeled from the Civil Rights movement, anti-Vietnam War protests and other political and social upheaval — and protest art took different forms, like performance art, even puppets.
Art and activism became especially entwined during the AIDS crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s, with artists likeKeith Haring, photographerNan Goldinand theSilence=DeathandGran Furycollectives, among many others, using art to highlight the plight of those suffering and dying from the disease — but also to draw attention to an often indifferent society, and to sometimes angrily demand action.
More recently, the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements spread across the globe, as did the art that was created in response to each.
Art's power to persuade
Samuel Ewing is a lecturer of art history at Rutgers University-Camden. Art, he said, "is a space and a mechanism where a society can define itself, and say who does and does not count as a citizen, as a valued member of society."
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The President's House in Philadelphia,where the Trump administration ordered the removal of displays about enslaved people kept at the site by George Washington, is an example of how people used art to offer a message counter to what their government presents. After the displays were removed, people left notes and drawings and held protests at the site. (A federal judge later ordered the replacement of the displays; the administration appealed the ruling.)
"Removing and repressing the story of chattel slavery at the founding of the country, people recognize that this is a way of saying who does and who doesn't belong. [Members of the public] putting up their own works of art is a way of the public reclaiming the space and telling those stories," he said.
Ewing, whose background is in photography, also pointed to a formerly enslaved person who used the power of photography to send a message of resistance.
"Sojourner Truthtook great care in having photographic portraits of herself taken so that she could sell them at speaking engagements," he explained. The abolitionist had the prints captioned with the words, "I sell the shadow to support the substance," which Ewing called "a sly piece of rhetoric to say she's selling shadows of herself to support her livelihood and the movement of which she is a part."
Images can capture a moment in history, and crystalize a cause in a way that words can't, he said.
"You see these moments in history where certain photos and visual images emerge as iconic symbols, and they have the ability to visually condense an entire issue down to one moment visible to a lot of people, to people who might not feel recognized or seen."
Freedom of expression, in protest and in art
America, of course, not only encourages artistic expression: Freedom of speech and assembly are both enshrined in our Constitution. That means "Americans are more familiar with this type of protest-activist art, and we might even take it for granted because we live with it all the time," said the Met's Rudnick.
"It's all around us in the public and the press," she added. "Artists make their work with the public in mind."
"We live in an increasingly visual and visually mediated world," Ewing said. "Artists work in a way that can allow us to step back and take a more critical look and understand the ways we are shaped by the visual world around us. Artists are aware of not just the need to manipulate and understand the visual world, they also think about the circulation of images, who the audience is, and where will people see these artworks?"
Galleries and museums are one way to spread a message, Ewing noted. But to really persuade people, artists know they need to reach the people where they are. He referred again to the President's House and the art that sprung up there when the administration took out the existing displays.
"These artistic interventions at that space, are a recognition that art has a role to play, and when it's taken away, artists and the public will fill that gap."
Phaedra Trethan is a national correspondent for USA TODAY, writing about history and Americana. Contact her by email at ptrethan@usatoday.com, on X @wordsbyphaedra, on BlueSky @byphaedra, or on Threads @by_phaedra
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:For over 250 years, an American tradition uses art as protest