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WASHINGTON (April 18, 2023) Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on the Department of Homeland Security's budget request for Fiscal Year 24 at the Senate Dirksen Building in Washington, DC. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour)
WASHINGTON (November 17, 2022) Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on national security and threats to the country in Washington, DC. (DHS Photo by Sydney Phoenix)
Senate Subcommittee on Defense under the Committee on Appropriations hearing on Our Space Policy . GWU Elliott School Prof. Scott Pace testifies. , Washington DC. March 5, 2014 © Rick Reinhard 2014 email rick@rickreinhard.com
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington D.C. Sept. 16, 2014. President Barack H. Obama authorized military strikes in Syria to destroy, degrade, and defeat the terrorist group known as ISIS. Department of Defense Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Daniel Hinton.
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis testifies during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Oct. 3, 2017. Mattis testified alongside U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the U.S. Defense strategy in South Asia. (DoD Photo by U.S. Army Sgt. James K. McCann)
Arthur Roessler, 1910
Schwarze Kreide/Black chalk
Albertina
Egon Schiele met the writer and collector Arthur Roessler in 1909. These two portrait studies testify to the artist's interest in his subject's precise physiognomy. Like in the portrait of Eduad Kosmack, the subtly worked eyes lend the portrayed subject a penetrading gaze. The tree-quarter pencil portrait drawing shows Schiele's paternal friend and patron as a person self-confidently at peace with himself with his hands places proudly on his hips: a kind of portrait traditionally characterizing a determined man of action.
Schiele lernt den Publizisten und Sammler Arthus Roessler im Jahr 1909 kennen. Die zwei Porträtstudien zeigen das Interesse des Künstlers an der präzisen Physiognomie. Wie beim Bildnis Eduard Kosmacks sind bei der Kopfstudie die Augen fein herausgearbeitet und geben dem Porträtierten einen eindringlichen Blick. Die dreiviertelfigurige Bleistiftzeichnung zeigt Schieles väterlichen Freund und Förderer als eine selbstbewusst in sich ruhende Persönlichkeit, die stolz die Arme in die Hüften stemmt. Ein Porträttypus, der in der traditionellen Auffassung einen entschlossenen Tatmenschen charakterisiert.
The Albertina
The architectural history of the Palais
(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
Image: The oldest photographic view of the newly designed Palais Archduke Albrecht, 1869
"It is my will that the expansion of the inner city of Vienna with regard to a suitable connection of the same with the suburbs as soon as possible is tackled and at this on Regulirung (regulation) and beautifying of my Residence and Imperial Capital is taken into account. To this end I grant the withdrawal of the ramparts and fortifications of the inner city and the trenches around the same".
This decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I, published on 25 December 1857 in the Wiener Zeitung, formed the basis for the largest the surface concerning and architecturally most significant transformation of the Viennese cityscape. Involving several renowned domestic and foreign architects a "master plan" took form, which included the construction of a boulevard instead of the ramparts between the inner city and its radially upstream suburbs. In the 50-years during implementation phase, an impressive architectural ensemble developed, consisting of imperial and private representational buildings, public administration and cultural buildings, churches and barracks, marking the era under the term "ring-street style". Already in the first year tithe decided a senior member of the Austrian imperial family to decorate the facades of his palace according to the new design principles, and thus certified the aristocratic claim that this also "historicism" said style on the part of the imperial house was attributed.
Image: The Old Albertina after 1920
It was the palace of Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895), the Senior of the Habsburg Family Council, who as Field Marshal held the overall command over the Austro-Hungarian army. The building was incorporated into the imperial residence of the Hofburg complex, forming the south-west corner and extending eleven meters above street level on the so-called Augustinerbastei.
The close proximity of the palace to the imperial residence corresponded not only with Emperor Franz Joseph I and Archduke Albert with a close familial relationship between the owner of the palace and the monarch. Even the former inhabitants were always in close relationship to the imperial family, whether by birth or marriage. An exception here again proves the rule: Don Emanuel Teles da Silva Conde Tarouca (1696-1771), for which Maria Theresa in 1744 the palace had built, was just a close friend and advisor of the monarch. Silva Tarouca underpins the rule with a second exception, because he belonged to the administrative services as Generalhofbaudirektor (general court architect) and President of the Austrian-Dutch administration, while all other him subsequent owners were highest ranking military.
In the annals of Austrian history, especially those of military history, they either went into as commander of the Imperial Army, or the Austrian, later kk Army. In chronological order, this applies to Duke Carl Alexander of Lorraine, the brother-of-law of Maria Theresa, as Imperial Marshal, her son-in-law Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, also field marshal, whos adopted son, Archduke Charles of Austria, the last imperial field marshal and only Generalissimo of Austria, his son Archduke Albrecht of Austria as Feldmarschalil and army Supreme commander, and most recently his nephew Archduke Friedrich of Austria, who held as field marshal from 1914 to 1916 the command of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Despite their military profession, all five generals conceived themselves as patrons of the arts and promoted large sums of money to build large collections, the construction of magnificent buildings and cultural life. Charles Alexander of Lorraine promoted as governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1741 to 1780 the Academy of Fine Arts, the Théâtre de Ja Monnaie and the companies Bourgeois Concert and Concert Noble, he founded the Academie royale et imperial des Sciences et des Lettres, opened the Bibliotheque Royal for the population and supported artistic talents with high scholarships. World fame got his porcelain collection, which however had to be sold by Emperor Joseph II to pay off his debts. Duke Albert began in 1776 according to the concept of conte Durazzo to set up an encyclopedic collection of prints, which forms the core of the world-famous "Albertina" today.
Image : Duke Albert and Archduchess Marie Christine show in family cercle the from Italy brought along art, 1776. Frederick Henry Füger.
1816 declared to Fideikommiss and thus in future indivisible, inalienable and inseparable, the collection 1822 passed into the possession of Archduke Carl, who, like his descendants, it broadened. Under him, the collection was introduced together with the sumptuously equipped palace on the Augustinerbastei in the so-called "Carl Ludwig'schen fideicommissum in 1826, by which the building and the in it kept collection fused into an indissoluble unity. At this time had from the Palais Tarouca by structural expansion or acquisition a veritable Residenz palace evolved. Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was first in 1800 the third floor of the adjacent Augustinian convent wing adapted to house his collection and he had after 1802 by his Belgian architect Louis de Montoyer at the suburban side built a magnificent extension, called the wing of staterooms, it was equipped in the style of Louis XVI. Only two decades later, Archduke Carl the entire palace newly set up. According to scetches of the architect Joseph Kornhäusel the 1822-1825 retreaded premises presented themselves in the Empire style. The interior of the palace testified from now in an impressive way the high rank and the prominent position of its owner. Under Archduke Albrecht the outer appearance also should meet the requirements. He had the facade of the palace in the style of historicism orchestrated and added to the Palais front against the suburbs an offshore covered access. Inside, he limited himself, apart from the redesign of the Rococo room in the manner of the second Blondel style, to the retention of the paternal stock. Archduke Friedrich's plans for an expansion of the palace were omitted, however, because of the outbreak of the First World War so that his contribution to the state rooms, especially, consists in the layout of the Spanish apartment, which he in 1895 for his sister, the Queen of Spain Maria Christina, had set up as a permanent residence.
Picture: The "audience room" after the restoration: Picture: The "balcony room" around 1990
The era of stately representation with handing down their cultural values found its most obvious visualization inside the palace through the design and features of the staterooms. On one hand, by the use of the finest materials and the purchase of masterfully manufactured pieces of equipment, such as on the other hand by the permanent reuse of older equipment parts. This period lasted until 1919, when Archduke Friedrich was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the republicanization of the collection and the building first of all finished the tradition that the owner's name was synonymous with the building name:
After Palais Tarouca or tarokkisches house it was called Lorraine House, afterwards Duke Albert Palais and Palais Archduke Carl. Due to the new construction of an adjacently located administration building it received in 1865 the prefix "Upper" and was referred to as Upper Palais Archduke Albrecht and Upper Palais Archduke Frederick. For the state a special reference to the Habsburg past was certainly politically no longer opportune, which is why was decided to name the building according to the in it kept collection "Albertina".
Picture: The "Wedgwood Cabinet" after the restoration: Picture: the "Wedgwood Cabinet" in the Palais Archduke Friedrich, 1905
This name derives from the term "La Collection Albertina" which had been used by the gallery Inspector Maurice von Thausing in 1870 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts for the former graphics collection of Duke Albert. For this reason, it was the first time since the foundation of the palace that the name of the collection had become synonymous with the room shell. Room shell, hence, because the Republic of Austria Archduke Friedrich had allowed to take along all the movable goods from the palace in his Hungarian exile: crystal chandeliers, curtains and carpets as well as sculptures, vases and clocks. Particularly stressed should be the exquisite furniture, which stems of three facilities phases: the Louis XVI furnitures of Duke Albert, which had been manufactured on the basis of fraternal relations between his wife Archduchess Marie Christine and the French Queen Marie Antoinette after 1780 in the French Hofmanufakturen, also the on behalf of Archduke Charles 1822-1825 in the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory by Joseph Danhauser produced Empire furnitures and thirdly additions of the same style of Archduke Friedrich, which this about 1900 at Portois & Ffix as well as at Friedrich Otto Schmidt had commissioned.
The "swept clean" building got due to the strained financial situation after the First World War initially only a makeshift facility. However, since until 1999 no revision of the emergency equipment took place, but differently designed, primarily the utilitarianism committed office furnitures complementarily had been added, the equipment of the former state rooms presented itself at the end of the 20th century as an inhomogeneous administrative mingle-mangle of insignificant parts, where, however, dwelt a certain quaint charm. From the magnificent state rooms had evolved depots, storage rooms, a library, a study hall and several officed.
Image: The Albertina Graphic Arts Collection and the Philipphof after the American bombing of 12 März 1945.
Image: The palace after the demolition of the entrance facade, 1948-52
Worse it hit the outer appearance of the palace, because in times of continued anti-Habsburg sentiment after the Second World War and inspired by an intolerant destruction will, it came by pickaxe to a ministerial erasure of history. In contrast to the graphic collection possessed the richly decorated facades with the conspicuous insignia of the former owner an object-immanent reference to the Habsburg past and thus exhibited the monarchial traditions and values of the era of Francis Joseph significantly. As part of the remedial measures after a bomb damage, in 1948 the aristocratic, by Archduke Albert initiated, historicist facade structuring along with all decorations was cut off, many facade figures demolished and the Hapsburg crest emblems plunged to the ground. Since in addition the old ramp also had been cancelled and the main entrance of the bastion level had been moved down to the second basement storey at street level, ended the presence of the old Archduke's palace after more than 200 years. At the reopening of the "Albertina Graphic Collection" in 1952, the former Hapsburg Palais of splendour presented itself as one of his identity robbed, formally trivial, soulless room shell, whose successful republicanization an oversized and also unproportional eagle above the new main entrance to the Augustinian road symbolized. The emocratic throw of monuments had wiped out the Hapsburg palace from the urban appeareance, whereby in the perception only existed a nondescript, nameless and ahistorical building that henceforth served the lodging and presentation of world-famous graphic collection of the Albertina. The condition was not changed by the decision to the refurbishment because there were only planned collection specific extensions, but no restoration of the palace.
Image: The palace after the Second World War with simplified facades, the rudiment of the Danubiusbrunnens (well) and the new staircase up to the Augustinerbastei
This paradigm shift corresponded to a blatant reversal of the historical circumstances, as the travel guides and travel books for kk Residence and imperial capital of Vienna dedicated itself primarily with the magnificent, aristocratic palace on the Augustinerbastei with the sumptuously fitted out reception rooms and mentioned the collection kept there - if at all - only in passing. Only with the repositioning of the Albertina in 2000 under the direction of Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the palace was within the meaning and in fulfillment of the Fideikommiss of Archduke Charles in 1826 again met with the high regard, from which could result a further inseparable bond between the magnificent mansions and the world-famous collection. In view of the knowing about politically motivated errors and omissions of the past, the facades should get back their noble, historicist designing, the staterooms regain their glamorous, prestigious appearance and culturally unique equippment be repurchased. From this presumption, eventually grew the full commitment to revise the history of redemption and the return of the stately palace in the public consciousness.
Image: The restored suburb facade of the Palais Albertina suburb
The smoothed palace facades were returned to their original condition and present themselves today - with the exception of the not anymore reconstructed Attica figures - again with the historicist decoration and layout elements that Archduke Albrecht had given after the razing of the Augustinerbastei in 1865 in order. The neoclassical interiors, today called after the former inhabitants "Habsburg Staterooms", receiving a meticulous and detailed restoration taking place at the premises of originality and authenticity, got back their venerable and sumptuous appearance. From the world wide scattered historical pieces of equipment have been bought back 70 properties or could be returned through permanent loan to its original location, by which to the visitors is made experiencable again that atmosphere in 1919 the state rooms of the last Habsburg owner Archduke Frederick had owned. The for the first time in 80 years public accessible "Habsburg State Rooms" at the Palais Albertina enable now again as eloquent testimony to our Habsburg past and as a unique cultural heritage fundamental and essential insights into the Austrian cultural history. With the relocation of the main entrance to the level of the Augustinerbastei the recollection to this so valuable Austrian Cultural Heritage formally and functionally came to completion. The vision of the restoration and recovery of the grand palace was a pillar on which the new Albertina should arise again, the other embody the four large newly built exhibition halls, which allow for the first time in the history of the Albertina, to exhibit the collection throughout its encyclopedic breadh under optimal conservation conditions.
Image: The new entrance area of the Albertina
64 meter long shed roof. Hans Hollein.
The palace presents itself now in its appearance in the historicist style of the Ringstrassenära, almost as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But will the wheel of time should not, cannot and must not be turned back, so that the double standards of the "Albertina Palace" said museum - on the one hand Habsburg grandeur palaces and other modern museum for the arts of graphics - should be symbolized by a modern character: The in 2003 by Hans Hollein designed far into the Albertina square cantilevering, elegant floating flying roof. 64 meters long, it symbolizes in the form of a dynamic wedge the accelerated urban spatial connectivity and public access to the palace. It advertises the major changes in the interior as well as the huge underground extensions of the repositioned "Albertina".
Christian Benedictine
Art historian with research interests History of Architecture, building industry of the Hapsburgs, Hofburg and Zeremonialwissenschaft (ceremonial sciences). Since 1990 he works in the architecture collection of the Albertina. Since 2000 he supervises as director of the newly founded department "Staterooms" the restoration and furnishing of the state rooms and the restoration of the facades and explores the history of the palace and its inhabitants.
This gathering was in Winchester, Virginia. A reenactment that included every important leader. Here General McCleanen testifiies for the union. While Jefferson Davis (in white) the President of the Confederacy listens next to Honest Abe. You photographers should note the man in the straw hat. That's Mathew Brady the first important documentary photographer ever who's silver plates of the CIvil War testify to its grim reality.
MassDOT Secretary Richard Davey testifies in Pittsfield at the Transportation Committee's oversight hearing about MassDOT's priorities: safety, customer service, innovation, employee development, and fiscal responsibility.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack testifies before the House Agriculture Committee regarding the “State of the Rural Economy“ at the Longworth House Office Building in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Mar. 5, 2013. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
A photographer takes a picture of U.S Secretary of State John Kerry as he settles into his seat on February 24, 2016, prior to testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Foreign Operations on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
Revelation 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
It sounds like "the Lake of Fire" is a place where those who are there "thirst" but their thirst will not be quenched. The "lake" may have "water" that cannot quench their thirst. They will have their memories to contend with for eternity. The "flames of torment" are not flames that will destroy. They will be thirsty.... :
Luke 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:
28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
1 Peter 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
Revelation 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
Washington D.C. (August 6, 2020) Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf testifies in front of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Dr. Charles Lee Testifies at a U.S. Helsinki Commission Hearing - July 15, 2011
(Photo Credit: Josh Shapiro)
Henry Thomas, president of 3,000-member Laborers’ Local 74 and the Washington, D.C. Laborers’ District Council, testifies before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) December 6, 1950 where he testified about his communist actitivites and identifying other members of the Communist Party.
Thomas, appearing without an attorney, named five other Laborer’s Union members as members or former members of the Party. He had previously met secretly with committee investigators.
Roy Wood, D.C. Communist Party leader who would later be jailed under the Smith Act, called Thomas a “stool pigeon.”
Thomas also described the Communist Party organization in the District of Columbia identifying a high school branch, branches at Howard, American and George Washington Universities, a white collar branch and a secret branch.
He was in the largest, he testified, Unit No. 1 operating in midtown Washington, D.C. that spent most of its time organizing around issues of concern to black people, including police brutality.
Thomas testified he joined the Communist Party during the winder of 1937-38 and was active in the short-lived Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) United Construction Workers that sought to organize the building trades along industrial lines.
Thomas came back the next day and provided the committee with more information, including the names of other people he said were Communist Party members.
Thomas was prominent in left-wing circles in the District of Columbia for approximately 12 years.
He was active in the campaign against police brutality in 1939-41.
He served 28 months in the U.S. Army during World War II and resumed his activities after his discharge in December 1945.
He worked to form a communist grouping within the AFL laborer’s union with three others. He then teamed up with Thomas Sampler, a rank-and-file activist who was seeking to oust mobsters from the union. Sampler later joined the Communist Party as well.
Thomas first won election as secretary treasurer and in 1948 the group was successful in ousting all of the old regime. The group resigned their Communist Party membership that year in order to sign the Taft-Harley non-communist affidavits. Thomas later testified that the group continued to meet with Communist Party leaders.
Laborers’ Local 74 was often among the sponsors of a number of civil rights and labor rights activities in the District of Columbia, including the Progressive Party and anti-police brutality events.
In June 1949 Thomas won a majority on the Laborer’s District Council to call a strike of all laborers’ locals in the area a day after union carpenters went on strike.
The month-long strike resulted in a wage increase, but set off an internal battle within the Laborer’s District Council between the left and right wings within the laborers that led to the investigations.
Thomas quickly broke with the Communist Party and without an attorney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee about District of Columbia communist activities, naming names and describing party branches and activities. He also met privately with HUAC investigators.
Despite the controversy over his previous Communist Party membership, Thomas survived an attempt by the right-wing to oust him as president of Local 74 by eight votes.
In 1950 and 1952, the employers refused to meet with Thomas to negotiate contracts, but later relented after the laborers’ membership backed Thomas.
Thomas made some gains for the laborers, winning wage increases and establishing a comprehensive health plan.
Sampler, who had broken with Thomas and opposed him was later convicted of embezzlement of laborer’s funds and imprisoned where he died in jail.
Thomas later testified in the 1952 trial of Marie Richardson Harris, another District of Columbia alleged communist, who was convicted, in part, on Thomas’s testimony and sentenced to prison for failing to disclose her alleged communist affiliations on a government job application.
Thomas continued to serve as Local 74 president until 1955 when he was defeated 416-371. He went back to work as a laborer and periodically attempted to regain union office, unsuccessfully teaming up with activists of the 60s and 70s—often denying he had betrayed his left wing friends of the 1930s and 40s.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsk72YVXD
The photographer is unknown. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard published by H.B.
Dunster
Dunster is a village within the English county of Somerset, just within the north-eastern boundary of the Exmoor National Park. The United Kingdom Census of 2011 recorded a parish population of 817.
Iron Age hillforts testify to occupation of the area for thousands of years. The village grew up around Dunster Castle which was built on the Tor by the Norman warrior William I de Moyon shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Castle is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086.
The Castle was remodelled on several occasions by the Luttrell family who were lords of the manor from the 14th. to the 20th. centuries.
The Benedictine Dunster Priory was established in about 1100. The Priory Church of St George, dovecote and tithe barn are all relics from the Priory.
The village became a centre for wool and cloth production and trade, of which the Yarn Market, built by George Luttrell (d. 1629), is a relic.
There existed formerly a harbour, known as Dunster Haven, at the mouth of the River Avill, yet today the coast having receded is now about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from the village, and no sign of the harbour can be seen on the low lying marshes between the village and the coast.
Dunster Castle
At the end of the 14th. century the de Mohuns sold the castle to the Luttrell family, who continued to occupy the property until the late 20th. century. During the English Civil War, Dunster was initially held as a garrison for the Royalists. It fell to the Parliamentarians in 1645, and orders were sent out for the castle to be demolished. However, these orders were not carried out, and the castle remained the garrison for Parliamentarian troops until 1650.
Major alterations to the castle were undertaken by Henry Fownes Luttrell who had acquired it through marriage to Margaret Fownes-Luttrell in 1747. Following the death of Alexander Luttrell in 1944, the family was unable to afford the death duties on his estate.
The castle and surrounding lands were sold off to a property firm, the family continuing to live in the castle as tenants. The Luttrells bought back the castle in 1954, but in 1976 Colonel Walter Luttrell gave Dunster Castle and most of its contents to the National Trust, which operates it as a tourist attraction. It is a Grade I listed building and scheduled monument.
Dunster Priory was established as a Benedictine monastery around 1100. The first church in Dunster was built by William de Mohun who gave the church and the tithes of several manors and two fisheries, to the Benedictine Abbey at Bath. The priory, which was situated just north of the church, became a cell of the abbey.
The church was shared for worship by the monks and the parishioners, however this led to several conflicts between them. One outcome was the carved rood screen which divided the church in two, with the parish using the west chancel and the monks the east.
The priory church is now in parochial use as the Priory Church of St George. It still contains 12th. and 13th. century work, although most of the current building dates from the 15th. century. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.
In 1346 Cleeve Abbey built a nunnery in Dunster, but it was never inhabited by nuns, and was used as a guest house.
Gallox Bridge
Dunster had become a centre for woollen and clothing production by the 13th. century, with the market dating back to at least 1222, and a particular kind of kersey or broadcloth became known as 'Dunsters'.
The prosperity of Dunster was based on the wool trade, with profits helping to pay for the construction of the tower of the Priory Church of St. George, and to provide other amenities. The 15th. century Gallox Bridge was one of the main routes over the River Avill on the southern outskirts. The market was held in "The Shambles". However these shops were demolished in 1825, and now only the Yarn Market remains.
Dunster in WWII
During the Second World War, considerable defences were built along the coast as a part of British anti-invasion preparations, though the north coast of Somerset was an unlikely invasion site. Some of the structures remain to this day. Most notable are the pillboxes on the foreshore of Dunster Beach.
These are strong buildings made from pebbles taken from the beach and bonded together with concrete. From these, soldiers could have held their ground if the Germans had ever invaded.
Beach Huts
The beach site has a number of privately owned beach huts (or chalets as some owners call them) along with a small shop, a tennis court and a putting green. The chalets, measuring 18 by 14 feet (5.5 by 4.3 m), can be let out for holidays; some owners live in them all the year round.
Dunster Culture
Dunster was the birthplace of the song "All Things Bright and Beautiful" when Cecil Alexander was staying with Mary Martin, the daughter of one of the owners of Martins Bank.
The nearby hill, Grabbist, was originally heather-covered before its re-forestation, and was described as the "Purple-headed mountain".
On the evening of the 1st. May each year, the Minehead Hobby Horse visits Dunster and is received at the Castle. A local newspaper that was printed in May 1863 records:
"The origin professes to be in commemoration
of the wreck of a vessel at Minehead in remote
times, or the advent of a sort of phantom ship
which entered the harbour without Captain or
crew.
Once the custom was encouraged, but now is
much neglected, and perhaps soon will fall into
desuetude."
Another conjecture about its origin is that the hobby horse was the ancient King of the May. The Hobby Horse tradition begins with the waking of the inhabitants of Minehead by the beating of a loud drum. The hobby horse dances its way about the town and on to Dunster Castle.
Annually on the third Friday in August the village hosts the Dunster Show where local businesses and producers come together to showcase what Exmoor and West Somerset have to offer. A major part of the show is the showing of livestock, especially horses, cattle and sheep.
A more recent tradition (started in 1987) is Dunster by Candlelight which takes place every year on the first Friday and Saturday in December when this remarkably preserved medieval village turns its back on the present and lights its streets with candles.
To mark the beginning of the festival on Friday at 5 pm, there is the Lantern Lighting Procession that starts on the Steep and continues through the village until all the lanterns in the streets have been lit. The procession of children and their families is accompanied by colourful stilt walkers in costumes who put up the lanterns.
The old English Christmas tradition of burning the Ashen faggot takes place at the Luttrell Arms hotel every Christmas Eve. The pub was formerly a guest house for the Abbots of Cleeve; its oldest section dates from 1443.
The Dunster Yarn Market
The 17th. century Yarn Market is a market cross which was probably built in 1609 by the Luttrell family who were the local lords of the manor in order to maintain the importance of the village as a market, particularly for wool and cloth.
The Yarn Market is an octagonal building constructed around a central pier. The building contains a hole in one of the roof beams, a result of cannon fire in the Civil War. A bell at the top was rung to indicate the start of trading.
The Dunster Dovecote
The Dovecote was probably built in the late 16th. century. It has been designated as a Grade II* listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is approximately 19 feet (5.8 m) high and 19 feet (5.8 m) in diameter, with walls around 4 feet (1.2 m) thick.[81]
In the 18th. century the floor level and door were raised among several major alterations. The lower tiers of nest holes were blocked to protect against brown rats which had arrived in the Britain in 1720 and had reached Somerset by 1760.
A revolving ladder, known as a "potence", was installed to allow the pigeon keeper to search the nest holes more easily. In the 19th. century two feeding platforms were added to the axis of the revolving ladder.
When the ladder was installed in the 16th. century the base rested on a pin driven into a beam on the floor. The head of the pin sits in a metal cup in the base of the wooden pillar, which means the mechanism has never had to be oiled. When the Dunster Castle estate was sold, the dovecote was bought by the Parochial church council and opened to the public. Extensive repairs were undertaken in 1989.
The Dunster Tithe Barn
The Tithe Barn was originally part of the Benedictine Priory. It has been much altered since the 14th. century, and only a limited amount of the original features survive.
In the "Valor Ecclesiasticus" of 1535, the net annual income of the Dunster Tithe Barn is recorded as being £37. 4s. 8d (£37.23p), with £6. 13s. 7d (£6.68p) being passed on to the priory in Bath. The Somerset Buildings Preservation Trust has co-ordinated a £550,000 renovation project, turning the barn into a multi-purpose community hall under a 99-year lease at a pepper-corn rent, by the Crown Estate Commissioners who own the building.
Conygar Tower
Conygar Tower is a folly used as a landmark for shipping. It is at the top of Conygar Hill, and overlooks the village. It is a circular, 3 storey tower built of red sandstone. It was commissioned by Henry Luttrell and designed by Richard Phelps, and stands about 18 metres (59 ft) high so that it can be seen from Dunster Castle on the opposite hillside.
There is no evidence that it ever had floors or a roof. It has no strategic or military significance. The name Conygar comes from two medieval words Coney meaning rabbit and Garth meaning garden, indicating that it was once a warren where rabbits were bred for food. In 1997 a survey carried out by The Crown Estate identified cracks in the walls which were repaired in 2000.
Dunster Doll Museum
Dunster Doll Museum houses a collection of more than 800 dolls from around the world, based on the collection of the late Mollie Hardwick, who died in 1970 and donated her collection to the village memorial hall committee.
Established in 1971, the collection includes a display of British and foreign dolls in various costumes. Thirty-two of the dolls were stolen during a burglary in 1992 and have never been recovered.
Governor Charlie Baker testifies at the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission’s 10th annual Health Care Cost Trends Hearing at Suffolk University Law School in Boston on Nov. 2, 2022. [Joshua Qualls/Governor's Press Office]
Lt. Governor Testifies on MHIP Legislation to the Senate Finance Committee. by Jay Baker at Annapolis, MD.
Martef (Basement) Theatre actors wear a yellow Star of David performing “The Strength to Tell” honoring holocaust survivors. Jerusalem, Israel. 07/09/2011.
“On this spot, where I stand before you, the judges of Israel, to prosecute Adolph Eichmann – I am not alone. Standing at my side are six million prosecutors. But they cannot rise to their feet; they cannot point an accusing finger at the glass booth nor shout at the accused sitting inside. I am the accuser. Because their ashes are piled up among the hills of Auschwitz and the fields of Treblinka, washed away in the rivers of Poland and their graves are dispersed throughout the length and width of the land of Europe. Their blood screams out but their voices are unheard. I will therefore be their mouth and read the horrific charges on their behalf.”
The trial of SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer, Adolph Otto Eichmann opened with this statement by the prosecutor, Attorney General, Gideon Hausner, before the Jerusalem District Court, on April 11th, 1961, convened in the Bet Haam auditorium to allow enough seating arrangements for the crowds that gathered to watch, listen, learn and to cry in horror and disbelief.
Eichmann’s prosecution was made possible by his capture in a daring undercover operation carried out by Mossad in which he was found in Argentina under a fraudulent ID, identified, captured and secretly transported to Israel to face justice.
Eichmann was responsible for the facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe. Michael A. Musmanno, a U.S. naval officer in 1945, who had questioned the Nuremberg defendants and would later go on to become a Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, testified that the late Hermann Goring "made it very clear that Eichmann was the man to determine, in what order, in what countries, the Jews were to die." Eichmann was convicted on fifteen charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, sentenced to death, hung shortly before midnight on May 31, 1962, cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea beyond the territorial waters to ensure that there could be no future memorial and that no country would serve as his final resting place.
More than one hundred witnesses testified in the Eichmann trial. These Holocaust survivors, who had already built new lives for themselves, were, from the witness stand, sucked back into the hell from which they had escaped, back into the memories and nightmares. Back to their families and loved ones who were murdered, back to communities that were destroyed.
The Martef (Basement) Theatre took upon itself a special creative project – “The Strength to Tell” – an evening honoring the true heroes of the Eichmann trial, exactly 50 years later, pointing the spotlights at the altruism and bravery of these survivors, who found the inner strengths required to tell their stories as witnesses in the Eichmann trial. This special evening took place in the same auditorium where Eichmann sat sneering and indifferent in a bulletproof glass booth, on the same stage where survivors testified and broke down crying and in pain, then called the Bet Haam Auditorium, today the Gerard Bachar Center in downtown Jerusalem. The Martef (Basement) Theatre performs, honoring the Holocaust survivors with their interpretation of the inner strengths required to testify, to tell your personal story to the whole world, sometimes for the first time. And this is apparently something that this unique group of youth knows something about …
The Martef (Basement) Theatre was established in 2006 as a social/business venture by the girls at Bet Hatzabarit Shelter in Jerusalem. A school for drama was established in the wine cellar of an old Templer tavern. The student-actors are borderline youth. The goals of the school are two; use of drama for self-empowerment of its actors and the creation of quality theater based on the highest artistic and professional standards. Professional teachers are employed. Student-actors must pass auditions to be accepted and undergo training in drama, voice development, physical abilities and more.
The theatrical evening honoring the Eichmann trial witnesses is how the Martef (Basement) Theatre, whose actors are youth at risk, chose to mark its 5th anniversary. Actors met with the last living witnesses and heard from them, first hand, the ‘testimonies behind the testimonies’, of their difficulties to open up and testify before the world. The Strength to Tell was an educational process for the actors teaching and experiencing them in self-worth, bravery and in finding the inner strengths necessary to stand before the glass partition of indifference and imperviousness, to survive an inferno and build a life, against all odds, to look to the future without shame for the past.
The extraordinary and emotional performance is based on five short films in which the witnesses tell of their personal Holocaust experiences and testimony followed by the theatrical interpretations of the emotional and psychological processes endured by the witnesses before and during the trial. Witnesses Nachum Hoch, Israel Gutman, Yoesef Kleinman, Avraham Aviel and Yehuda Bakon were present in the auditorium with their families as actors Gil Cohen, Avigail Lev, Sofi Gendel, Chaim Sofer, Bar Fuzailov and Tagel Eliyahu, directed by Hagai Aharoni, touched their hearts and souls. Guest of Honor was Speaker of the Knesset, Mr. Reuven Rubi Rivlin who addressed the audience as well as Knesset Member Mr. Zevulun Orlev, Ms. Tamar Raveh-Hausner, daughter of Eichmann prosecutor Gideon Hausner, and Mr. Chaim Guri, author, poet, and journalist who covered the trial proceedings.
Oregon Trucking Association President Jana Jarvis (left) and Oregon Environmental Council Deputy Director Chris Hagerbaumer present to the OTC.
An anonymous worker testifies to the fear and intimidation organized workers face on the job at a hearing organized by the Milwaukee County Labor Council. The screen was used to protect the identities of workers who were concerned that speaking out could cost them their jobs. This worker was a pilot who told a story about a lifetime pilot for the "hometown" airline who experienced a hostile atmosphere for organizing. The pilot was eventually fired, but thanks to a fight by the pilot's union he was able to get his job back and is still flying today.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken takes a photo with Ranking Member Representative Michael McCaul before he testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on “The Biden Administration’s Priorities for U.S. Foreign Policy” in Washington, D.C. on March 10, 2021. [State Department photo by Freddie Everett/ Public Domain]
Lt. Governor Testifies on MHIP Legislation to the Senate Finance Committee. by Jay Baker at Annapolis, MD.
Mayor Bill de Blasio testifies in front of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means Committees on the impacts of the Executive Budget at the Legislative Office Building in Albany, NY on Monday, Feb. 5, 2018. Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken takes a photo with Committee Chairman Representative Gregory Meeks before he testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on “The Biden Administration’s Priorities for U.S. Foreign Policy” in Washington, D.C. on March 10, 2021. [State Department photo by Freddie Everett/ Public Domain]
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John F. Sopko testifies before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Challenges Affecting U.S. Foreign Assistance to Afghanistan
Lt. Governor Testifies on MHIP Legislation to the Senate Finance Committee. by Jay Baker at Annapolis, MD.
White construction workers bar black Americans from testifying at a U.S. Labor Department hearing on integration of the building trades in Chicago September 25, 1969.
More than 2,000 white members of building trades unions packed the hearing room at the Customs House meant for 150.
They then barred Willis Martin, the black head of the U.S. Department of Apprentice Training from entering the Customs House and later stopped Rev. C. T. Vivian of Coalition for United Community Action (which was leading the effort to integrate the crafts), despite the efforts of police to break through the crowd..
The following day more than 5,000 white workers surrounded the building. Some later marched to a nearby demonstration protesting the conspiracy trial of the Chicago 8 antiwar defendants, heckling the antiwar protesters.
George Meany, the AFL-CIO president, later denounced the Labor Department and black activists.
“There can be no basis for cooperation with so-called militant groups who pretend to represent these minority people, who threaten violence. Nor can the training of skilled mechanics be turned over to people who are completely without competence to this industry.”
The Labor Department later began negotiating weak integration plans in different cities that went unenforced.
In May 1970. a “Washington Plan” adopted by the Labor Department was denounced by Reginald Booker who headed the Washington Area Construction Industry Task Force—the local group seeking to integrate the trades.
Booker charged the plan as “devoid of promise” and “wholly unacceptable” at a June 4, 1970 press conference at the Labor Department.
Specifically, the task force said that the plan was diluted by including the predominantly white suburbs of Virginia and Maryland,
“It serves little purpose to offer an unemployed but eligible black construction worker residing in D.C. a job in Reston, Va. or some other remote construction site when in his own city the overwhelming majority of jobs will continue to go to whites,” the task force wrote in a letter to Secretary of Labor George P. Schultz.
The task force also blasted the Labor Department for excluding a number of crafts from the plan, including carpenters and operating engineers; for low quotas on unions like the sheet metal workers, for “discrimination committed over the years;” for “escape clauses” that make the plan unenforceable; and for not addressing the “restrictive” bonding and insurance requirements for federal contracts that are out of reach for most minority contractors.
Booker explained in a 1970 interview that the task force was seeking an immediate overhaul of the whole union-sponsored apprenticeship program in order to rectify past and current discrimination.
However, the Labor Department went ahead with its plan and the results 10 years later were about as Booker had predicted.
Ten years after the “Washington Plan” was initiated and six years after it was supposed to be completed, none of the craft unions met hiring goals. Only an average of 10 percent of all journeymen across all construction craft unions were from a minority group.
As Booker predicted, the federal government did not enforce the plan. The District’s mayor’s office found that more than 60 percent of all reviewed building sites in the city did not meet hiring guidelines, but only two of 1,000 contractors investigated on site were barred from doing federally assisted construction which was the ultimate penalty for non-compliance.
For a detailed account of Booker’s activism, victories and defeats, see washingtonareaspark.com/2020/01/28/the-d-c-black-liberati...
For more information and related images, see www.flickr.com/gp/washington_area_spark/152V4G
The photographer is unknown. The image is a United Press International photograph housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.
AFGE President J David Cox Sr. testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and the Census regarding the harm caused by pay freezes, retirement cuts, and staff reductions to federal workers.
WASHINGTON (September 21, 2021) Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs regarding the Threats to the Homeland. Secretary Mayorkas was joined by Christopher Wray, FBI Director and Christine Abizaid, the Director of National Counterterrorism Center. (DHS Photo by Zachary Hupp)
Senator Mae Flexer looks on as state Representative Christine Rosati Randall (right) testifies on behalf of Senate Bill 49, which seeks to end the state hospital tax on small, independent hospitals with less than 160 beds -- such as Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam. Appearing with Sen. Flexer are Rep. Danny Rovero (left) and Day Kimball CEO & President Robert Smanik (second from right). (February 26, 2016) senatedems.ct.gov/pr/flexer-160226.php
Videos of GA PSC on Georgia Power coal plant closings @ GA PSC 2013-06-18
Pictures by for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 18 June 2013.
www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/2013/06/videos-of-ga-psc-on-georgia-...
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, testifies during a House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology budget hearing, Wednesday, March 2, 2011 in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
HOUSTON – Michael Wright, a command duty officer for Transocean from the Deepwater Horizon rig, testifies at the joint investigation hearing, Dec.7, 2010. The Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM) are co-chairing the fact-finding investigation launched to determine the cause of the initial incident and fire aboard the mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) Deepwater Horizon. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Richard Brahm.
Animation Style 1 of numberous different examples.
Ms. Winkle, Former Child Laborer at the National Pencil Company, under Leo Frank's tutelage, 1913.
Estelle Winkle, black and white sketch, colorized with artificial intelligence. She was one of nearly a dozen or so sweatshop factory girls at the trial of Leo Frank who testified that his character for lasciviousness was bad. Frank was engaging in sexual harassment against his child laborers and had attempted to convince several girls to engage in prostitution. Frank was known for having sexual liaisons with Rebecca Carson, whom he promoted to foreman.
In the rare photo of the Leo Frank trial taken on July 28th, 1913, while Dorsey was directly examining Newt Lee on the witness stand, in the far back corner, you can see her sitting by the window.
Sketch colorized and animated using AI, in 2021.
Benjamin Davis, the communist elect3ed councilmember on the New York City Council from Harlem, testifies before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in Washington, D.C. January 16, 1948 to oppose the Cole Bill that would outlaw communists running in elections.
Davis told the committee that the bill was a “Fascist-like invasion of the rights of the people” and that it and similar bills have fallen “like a plague upon the people.”
The January 29, 1948 Afro. American printed the following article:
“WASHINGTON, D.C. – (UNPA)—In testimony given recently, Georgia-born, Harvard-educated Benjamin J. Davis, New York City Councilman, taunted members of a House Administration subcommittee who questioned him about the tenets of the Communist party in the United States.
“A member of the National Committee of the Communist Party of the United States, Mr. Davis said the communist Party was unalterably opposed to the bill which would bar the communist party or any other party that directly or indirectly advocates the overthrow by violence or any other means from having the party name or the name of its candidates on the ballot.
:’I am extremely proud to be a member of the Communist Party, just as I am proud to be an American and proud to be Negro,’ Mr. Davis told the committee.
“He said he received the second highest vote for the New York City Council in the 1945 elation, “a higher vote than any Democrat in Manhattan County,” and he added that his record as a councilman would testify as to how far un-American the Communist party is.
“’I will put my record up against the record of anybody in Congress.’ He said, ‘I think that record is one that has been of benefit to the people of New York City, irrespective of their party, race, color or creed, and a benefit to the American democracy.’
“He said the bill to bar un-American parties from the election ballot, introduced by Representative William C. Cole, Republican of Missouri, ‘violates the Constitution and is un-American.’ He added that it denies to American citizens the right of free speech and free assembly.”
________
Davis would face trial later in 1948 under the Smith Act with 10 other Communist Party leaders.
Davis was reelected twice to his city council seat. In 1949, he was expelled from the council upon being convicted of conspiring to overthrow the federal government under the Smith Act – a World War II-era charge that rested on Davis's association with the Communist Party.
His expulsion from the council was required under state law. His former colleagues passed a resolution celebrating his ouster. He appealed the conviction for two years, without success.
After serving three years and four months in the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, Davis was freed.
In the subsequent years, Davis engaged in a speaking tour of college campuses and remained politically active, promoting an agenda of civil rights and economic populism.
The City College of New York – in the New York council district he represented in the 1940s – barred Davis from speaking on its campus in this period.
After a student protest, Davis was allowed to speak outside, on the street. He was close to Communist Party chairman William Z. Foster.
In 1962 Davis was charged with violating the Internal Security Act He died shortly before the case came to trial.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsk72YVXD
The photographer is unknown. The image is an Associated Press photograph housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.
Secretary Marco Rubio testifies before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs on the FY26 Department of State Budget Request on Capitol Hill, 2025. (Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)
DMV Administrator Tom McClellan testifies before the Oregon Transportation Commission about a change to gender designation on the Oregon driver license
Beginning in July, Oregon residents will have the option to mark their sex as “not specified” on their application for a driver license, instruction permit or identification card.
Under a new administrative rule approved June 15 by the Oregon Transportation Commission, card holders who do not wish to identify as either male or female will have a third option when they obtain, renew or replace their license, instruction permit or ID card at Oregon DMV. An X will appear instead of M or F in Oregon driver records and on the driver license, instruction permit or ID card.