French Posters & Newspapers ( FPN)
The period covered by these posters (or broadsides) and newspapers is the revolutionary years of 1848-1849 when the government of Louis Phillipe collapsed in France. 1848 was not only a year of revolution of France - indeed the entire European continent was shaken by a series of popular uprisings. Beginning in Palermo, spreading to Paris, revolts broke out in places as far apart as Venice and Ireland. Metternich, Guizot and Prince Wilhelm of Prussia were all deposed and forced into exile.The materials in the collection primarily focus on the circumstances surrounding the collapse of Louis-Philipe's Government, the subsequent but futile attempts by General Covaignac to crush the popular uprising and the national elections of 1848 that precipitated the rise of the French monarchist Louis Napoleon to power.