[Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla, 1753-1811]

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Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla was a Mexican Catholic priest whose call to arms on September 16, 1810, in the town of Dolores opened the War of Independence against Spanish colonial rule. This 1937 photographic print shows him as a figure of national memory rather than a record of his own time, since he was executed in 1811, more than a century before the picture was made. Hidalgo is still honored in Mexico as the father of the nation, and his image appeared often in the art and civic displays of the 1930s, when Mexican leaders and muralists were reshaping the country's historical narrative. The print is worth noticing for how it reflects that later effort to turn a revolutionary priest into a lasting symbol.

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