The liberty cap became a powerful revolutionary symbol because it drew on the ancient Roman emblem of manumission (freedom from slavery), first gaining political meaning in the American Revolution before being adopted and transformed in France. Its later disappearance from American national imagery reflects the growing political tension over slavery and sectional unity, while in France the symbol persisted and was redefined as an emblem of the republic.

• The liberty cap originates in Roman manumission rituals, where freed slaves were marked by the cap as a sign of liberation.
• The symbol entered modern political imagery through British radical culture and the American Revolution, especially via John Wilkes and Paul Revere.
• Revolutionary America widely used the liberty cap on flags, prints, medals, and public emblems, and the image was exported to France as a visual shorthand for liberty.
• In the early United States, the liberty cap faded from official national symbolism due to its association with emancipation amid unresolved tensions over slavery and sectional unity.
• In France, the symbol evolved into the Phrygian cap, visually aligned with working class dress, which anchored it in popular revolutionary culture and preserved it as a lasting emblem of the republic.

Korshak, Y. (1987). The Liberty Cap as a Revolutionary Symbol in America and France. Smithsonian Studies in American Art, 1(2), 53–69. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3108944

BREAKING: White House says staff member 'erroneously' made Trump's Obama post.

The post has been removed

@insiderpaper

Weakling 🤷

Flaying of a corrupt judge, Italy, 1657

Neighbor of Epstein Lutnick laughing here wants to go first. Every time child rape is brought up he reacts with laughter.

Trump on the Epstein Files: It’s time for the country to get onto something else.

"Diana and Callisto"
Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre