MANIFEST DESTINY - WASHINGTON'S VISION: In the midpoint of the painting is COLUMBIA, a female personification of the United States. On her head is what Crofutt calls "The Star of the Empire". She lays a telegraph wire with one hand and carries a school book in the other. Columbia represents the movement of "civilization" from the already well-settled East to the much more sparsely populated by Europeans West, leading settlers either on foot or by stagecoach, horseback, Conestoga wagon, wagon train, or riding steam trains. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Progress
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