Columbia (personification)Columbia (kəˈlʌmbiə; ), also known as Miss Columbia, is a female national personification of the United States. It was also a historical name applied to the Americas and to the New World. The association has given rise to the names of many American places, objects, institutions and companies, including the District of Columbia; Columbia, South Carolina; Columbia University; "Hail, Columbia"; Columbia Rediviva; and the Columbia River.
John BullJohn Bull is a national personification of the United Kingdom, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country-dwelling, jolly and matter-of-fact man. He originated in satirical works of the early 18th century and would come to stand for "English liberty" in opposition to revolutionaries. He was popular through the 18th and 19th centuries until the time of the First World War, when he generally stopped being seen as representative of the "common man".
PersonificationPersonification is the representation of a thing or abstraction as a person. In the arts, many things are commonly personified. These include numerous types of places, especially cities, countries, and continents, elements of the natural world such as the months or four seasons, four elements, four cardinal winds, five senses, and abstractions such as virtues, especially the four cardinal virtues and seven deadly sins, the nine Muses, or death.
National personificationA national personification is an anthropomorphic personification of a state or the people(s) it inhabits. It may appear in political cartoons and propaganda. Some early personifications in the Western world tended to be national manifestations of the majestic wisdom and war goddess Minerva/Athena, and often took the Latin name of the ancient Roman province. Examples of this type include Britannia, Germania, Hibernia, Hispania, Helvetia and Polonia.
PropagandaPropaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts.
American Civil WarThe American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.
Manifest destinyManifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. There were three basic tenets to the concept: The special virtues of the American people and their institutions The mission of the United States to redeem and remake the West in the image of the agrarian East An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty Historians have emphasized that "manifest destiny" was always contested.