In 1830s France, a satirical pear became a symbol of the king and a way around press censorship

historyThe Public Domain Review1830s · France

In 1830s France, a satirical pear became a symbol of the king and a way around press censorship

the gist

Patricia Mainardi tells the story of how French caricaturists turned a pear into a political symbol of King Louis-Philippe. After the July Revolution of 1830, the new constitutional king promised press freedom, but he soon passed a law that punished attacks on the king with prison terms and heavy fines. Charles Philipon, publisher of the satirical journal La Caricature, used images and captions to evade censors. An 1831 drawing of a mason plastering over the revolution was judged to resemble the king, and at his trial Philipon drew a series of portraits that ended in a pear. The image spread through shop windows and prints, and the Battle of the Pear went on for years. Mainardi shows how a visual joke became one of the most effective political metaphors of the century.

so what

The pear shows how satire and visual metaphor can survive when open speech is restricted, and it is an early example of a political image that spread like a meme.

fun fact

The English magazine Punch was inspired by the French journal Le Charivari.

more on this

background

Louis Philippe I (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850), nicknamed the Citizen King, was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, the penultimate monarch of France, the last French monarch to bear the title "King", and the only French monarch to descend from the Orléans branch of the Bourbon family. He abdicated from his throne during the French Revolution of 1848, which led to the foundation of the French Second Republic.

Louis Philippe was the eldest son of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (later known as Philippe Égalité). As Duke of Chartres, the younger Louis Philippe distinguished himself commanding troops during the French Revolutionary Wars and was promoted to lieutenant general by the age of 19, but broke with the First French Republic over its decision to execute King Louis XVI. He fled to Switzerland in 1793 after being connected with a plot to restore France's monarchy. His father fell under suspicion and was executed during the Reign of Terror.

From Wikipedia: Louis Philippe I (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

see

Unidentified photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Alphonse-Léon Noël, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

key facts

Born: 6 October 1773
Died: 26 August 1850
Known as: ruler, king

Facts: Wikidata (CC0)

Image: The Public Domain Review

source: The Public Domain Review ↗

historyThe Public Domain Review1909 · United States

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

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