Nast,Thomas b. September 26, 1840; Landau, Bavaria d. December 7, 1902; Guayaquil, Ecuador
Leading German American illustrator and cartoonist of the nineteenth century, creator of the modern image of Santa Claus and popularizer of the donkey and the elephant as symbols of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively.
In 1846 Nast immigrated to New York with his mother and sister, his father joined the family in 1849. As a teenager he joined Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper in 1855, where he devised his technique of using art as a social and political comment. In 1858 he started to freelance as an illustrator for the New York Illustrated News. In 1860 Nast went to Europe to cover the war for Italian independence. The American Civil War made Nast famous almost overnight. In 1862 he joined Harper's Weekly as an illustrator and cartoonist, thus reaching a national readership every week. Nast supported the Union cause and strongly identified with the Republican Party. His political influence was so great that Abraham Lincoln acknowledged Nast’s impact on American public opinion in his 1864 reelection. His cartoon “Compromise with the South” (Harper's Weekly, September 3, 1864) was widely used in Lincoln’s reelection campaign. It depicts a crippled Union soldier shaking hands with a healthy looking Confederate soldier, at their feet Columbia is weeping at a tombstone with the inscription “Union Heroes in a Useless War.” In the background fires are raging and a chained African American couple with a child face the gallows. In 1862 Nast
An illustration of Santa Claus by Thomas Nast, ca. 1892. (Library of Congress)
804 Nast,Thomas
An 1879 Thomas Nastpolitical cartoon in Harper's Weekly. Thomas Nastpopularized the donkey and the elephant as symbols of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively.
(Library of Congress)“Tweed Ring,” a circle of Tweed and his cronies, each pointing to the other. His cartoons played a major role in driving Tweed from office and to jail in 1871. From the same year dates his cartoon “The American River Ganges” (Harper’s Weekly, September 30, 1871), depicting Tammany Hall politicians forcing little children into a river filled with crocodiles dressed as Catholic priests. In the rear looms a huge Catholic church identified as “Tammany Hall” and the ruins of a public school. The cartoon illustrates that Nast did not hesitate to employ crude nativist and fiercely anti-Catholic sentiments for the Republican cause. By the late 1870s, however, Nast’s influence was already on the decline. He could not relate to the social and political changes in the Gilded Age. The change of management at Harper’s Weekly in 1877 brought restrictions for Nast, who hitherto had enjoyed much freedom over the choice of his subjects. The new management steered the magazine away from political issues, favored by Nast, to topics of a broader interest. In late 1886 Nast de
sketched the first Santa Claus for the cover of the Christmas issue of Harper’s Weekly (January 3, 1863), drawing on the German folk tradition of celebrating Saint Nicolas day on December 6. In the following years he popularized the image. After the Civil War, Nast also worked successfully as a book illustrator. Between 1868 and 1871 Nast sketched some of his most famous cartoons, when he relentlessly attacked Tammany Hall, the corrupt Democratic government of New York City, led by the notorious William “Boss” Tweed. One of his famous cartoons from this period, “Who stole the people’s money?” (New York Times, August 19, 1871), shows the parted from Harper’s Weekly. Some of his last cartoons for Harper’s Weekly dealt with the Haymarket riots in Chicago on May 4, 1886, and anarchism as a threat to the United States. Nast took a clear stand against the Haymarket anarchists, many of whom were German immigrants. His cartoon “Liberty or Death” depicts a crazed anarchist with a gun and a bomb, trampling on the American flag, but surrounded by policemen. The anarchist faces two choices: on his right Uncle Sam is ready to punish him with a gallows, on his left a ship to “Europe” is waiting. After 1886 Nast worked as a freelancer for a number of magazines. His magazine, Nast’s Weekly, launched in 1892, failed after six months. In 1902 President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Nast a U.S. consul general to Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Tobias Brinkmann
See also Anarchism; Haymarket; New York City
References and Further Reading
Keller, Morton. The Art and Politics of Thomas Nast. New York: Oxford University, 1968.