Thomas Nast

BORN: September 26, 1840 • Landau, Germany

DIED: December 7, 1902 • Guayaquil, Ecuador

Illustrator; political cartoonist

Thomas Nast's political cartoons and caricatures (cartoon representations of people that emphasize and exaggerate their subjects' most prominent features) influenced American political culture like no art ever had. His art played a key role in bringing to justice a corrupt politician. One cartoon in particular has been credited with helping to reelect Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) in 1864. Nast used his pen as if it were a sword to fight for causes he felt were worthy and necessary. By the time of his death at age sixty-two, Nast had spent forty-seven years as a cartoonist and had illustrated more than one hundred books.

"Nast is often spoken of as the first great American cartoonist. In a very real sense he was the last."
—Writer William Murrell

Finds his purpose in New York

Thomas Nast was born in Landau, Germany, on September 26, 1840. Germany's political climate during that decade was one of revolution (uprisings by common people against the government). Nast's father wanted to send his family to safety. In 1846, Nast, his mother, and his sister sailed to New York City; Nast's father joined them three years later, after his military service was over.

Nast and his sister were sent to public school in New York. Nast, however, had difficulty adjusting to his new surroundings and culture. Nast did not speak English, which made schoolwork even harder for him. After years of not doing his work and not caring about school, Nast still could not read and write and was in danger of flunking out. Instead of doing his homework, Nast spent time with a neighbor who made crayons and candles for a living. Young Nast would take any rejected crayons and spend hours drawing. It became clear that the twelve-year-old Nast would not ever put forth the effort to read and write, but he did have a natural talent for drawing. His school teacher suggested to his parents that the boy be taken out of regular school and enrolled in art school.

Nast's parents followed the advice. Nast spent the next three years learning drawing techniques. When finances became difficult for the family, Nast quit school and looked for work. Nast, never an athletic boy, experienced weight problems throughout his youth; manual labor was not an option for him. The only skill he had was drawing. Unfortunately, because he was just fifteen years old, no one was willing to risk hiring him outright as an illustrator. In the 1850s, most illustrators began their careers as apprentices, youngsters who work with experts to learn their skills. Apprentices were not always paid, and if they were, the pay was minimal.

Nast could not afford to apprentice to an illustrator. He had faith that his level of drawing ability was high enough to secure a position as an illustrator on his own. Nast tried to make an appointment with the publisher of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, a popular publication in 1855. After several failed attempts to see Leslie, Nast took matters into his own hands one day and snuck past the receptionist and into Leslie's office. The publisher admired the boy's courage. He gave Nast a test assignment, intended more to make him leave than to encourage him. He instructed Nast to go to a ferry (a boat carrying passengers) dock at rush hour and draw a picture of the crowd.

Nast took this assignment seriously and returned to Leslie's office the following morning, illustration in hand. Leslie was impressed with Nast's talent and hired him. Nast stayed with the publication until 1858, when it developed financial problems and he was laid off.

Finds fame at Harper's Weekly

Nast took a job with the New York Illustrated News, a competitor of Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. His new job required worldwide travel, and Nast enjoyed his visits to countries such as England and Italy. In 1861, he married Sarah Edwards; the couple would eventually have five children: Julie, Thomas Jr., Edith, Mabel, and Cyril.

While working for the New York Illustrated News, Nast began drawing political cartoons as a freelance (self-employed) artist. He sent these cartoons to various publications, including the popular Harper's Weekly, the leading illustrated newspaper of the nineteenth century. By the summer of 1862, Nast was a full-time employee of Harper's. Assigned to the battlefields of the raging Civil War (1861–65), he drew and sent back sketches of battle scenes. Once in New York, the sketches were given to engravers (skilled artists who cut illustrations into blocks of wood) who transformed them into wood engravings. These engravings included all the tiny details of Nast's large, complex sketches, which were often printed across two pages.

Like his father before him, Nast was a liberal, someone who believes in equality for all people and that change is progress if it is for the betterment of everyone. He was absolutely opposed to slavery, and so supported the Union (North) in the Civil War. Nast, though illiterate (unable to read or write), used his illustrations to communicate his political beliefs. On September 3, 1864, Harper's Weekly made Nast famous with its publication of his sketch titled "Compromise with the South." The sketch shows Columbia (symbol for the Americas) crying over the grave of Union heroes. A Northern Union soldier, who has lost one leg in the war, shakes the hand of a well-dressed, uninjured Southern Rebel soldier. At that point in the war, it seemed as if the Union was sure to lose. Nast's illustration reflected his disappointment and sympathy for the side he believed was defending justice. That sketch was reprinted in publications across the country. Many historians credit Nast's drawing with helping to reelect Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency.

Takes on Tammany Hall

Nast's fame brought him a great deal of freelance work after the war. He began illustrating books at this time, work that he would do his entire life. All the while, he continued working at Harper's.

In 1868, Nast turned his attention to New York City politics in general, focusing on William "Boss" Tweed (1823–1878) in particular. Tweed was an elected Democratic official on New York City's council who had served since 1851. Through the years, Tweed gained a great deal of power, mainly through corrupt business dealings. He and his friends were known as the Tweed Ring. Their headquarters were in a building known as Tammany Hall.

By appointing unqualified but grateful friends to high and powerful positions in city politics, Tweed and his ring managed to have a bill passed in 1870 that gave him complete authority of the city's treasury. He immediately began awarding valuable contracts to his friends, who in turn paid him large sums of money for the work he sent their way.

Tweed's crimes were many. For example, he faked leases on city-owned buildings, padded bills with charges for repairs that never happened, and bought overpriced goods and services from suppliers controlled by the ring. Altogether, the corrupt politicians stole between $30 million and $200 million from the city between 1865 and 1871.

Nast did not approve of Boss Tweed and his ring. He used his public forum to inform readers of Tweed's criminal activity. He regularly caricatured Tweed as a criminal and invented the "Tammany Tiger" to represent Tweed's ring. When Tweed discovered Nast's personal campaign to bring him down, the Boss offered the cartoonist $500,000 to put an end to his scheme. Although it was one hundred times more than his yearly salary, Nast refused the money. Not ready to give up, Tweed went directly to Harper's Weekly and tried to force the owners to fire Nast.

As reported in a Thomas Nast biography published on the Ohio State University Libraries: Cartoon Research Library Web site, Tweed sent his cronies to the publishing offices with this sentiment: "Stop them damn pictures. I don't care what the papers write about me. My constituents [people in his voting district] can't read. But, damn it, they can see the pictures." Harper's refused to fire its star cartoonist, and he kept his drawing campaign moving forward. In November 1871, Tweed and his ring were voted out of office. Tweed was sued by the City and was sent to debtor's prison since he could not pay the fine. He escaped and fled to Spain in 1876. He was recognized there and arrested by a customs official who had seen Nast's caricatures of the corrupt politician. Tweed died in prison in 1878.

Nast was, by standards of the day, a rich man by 1880. Harper's Weekly paid him an annual salary of $20,000. He received an additional $150 for every engraving published. Nast owned property in Harlem, New York, valued at $90,000, and owned another $60,000 in government bonds. His home, which was completely paid for, was valued at $100,000. But the majority of his income came from lectures to art students.

Nast used his popularity to sway public opinion, and Harper's knew they had a gold mine in the illustrator. Circulation increased as Nast's popularity grew, and his influence became enormous (see box).

Decline of popularity

Times were changing, though, and Nast did not want to change with them. Nast's popularity was declining. One of the primary factors influencing this decline was the change in American society as leisure time increased throughout the 1870s. Readers once relied solely on newspapers for their information on everything from politics to business. Now they expected to find amusement and entertainment in newspapers and magazines as well. They wanted publishers to provide them with information on fashion, family matters, and events happening around town. To do this, newspapers had to either grow in page count, which was costly, or limit the amount of space dedicated to current events and politics.

How Thomas Nast Left His Mark on America

Aside from the obvious influence Nast had on American culture and society, he left legacies he probably never imagined he would:

• Created his first drawing of Santa Claus, an image that for Americans remains the model of this famous figure.
• Used a donkey to represent the Democratic Party in a cartoon. Nast used an elephant to symbolize the Republican Party. Modern politics continues to use the donkey for Democrats, the elephant for Republicans.
• Developed John Chinaman, a sympathetic Chinese immigrant, to symbolize all Chinese immigrants in the United States. John Chinaman was the subject of several songs written during the Gilded Age and was written about by Mark Twain (1835–1910; see entry). This caricature eventually came to be perceived as a negative stereotype.

At that same time, Fletcher Harper (1806–1877), publisher and founder of Harper's Weekly, died and left the publication to Joseph W. Harper Jr. (1830–1896). Nast did not enjoy the editorial freedom under his new boss that he had become accustomed to, and he would not draw cartoons that went against his personal politics. His editor refused to allow Nast to publish cartoons that went against the publication's editorial positions. As Harper's changed its focus to that of a more general content, Nast found himself without much to say.

Nast's position was also affected by changes in the printing process. Woodblocks were no longer used by 1880, when photochemical processes replaced them. As a result, Nast's sketches looked harsh and angry because lines that had been softened by the engraving process were now more solid. Nast left the newspaper in 1886, after having contributed about twenty-two hundred cartoons, and freelanced for several years. He established his own publication, Nast's Weekly, in 1892, but the venture failed within six months.

A tragic end, a lasting legacy

Having gone through his savings, Nast was desperate for work by 1902. His friend, U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919; served 1901–9; see entry), offered him an appointment to serve as consul general (diplomat who represents the United States and handles issues related to individuals and businesses within the other country) in Ecuador. Nast accepted the appointment, but died of yellow fever within six months of leaving the United States.

Nast remains an icon (hero) of his profession in the twenty-first century. He was a paradox (a combination of opposites) in many ways. A man who could neither read nor write, he earned wealth and fame by influencing America's politics and readers for decades. Having had very little formal education, he made a fair percentage of his income giving lectures to college students. Throughout some of the most major cultural and societal shifts in American history, he maintained his commitment to his art and beliefs.

Illustrations and cartoons by Nast are worth a great deal of money. His Christmas drawings have been compiled and published in book format. His sketches for Harper's Weekly have become collector's items.

For More Information

BOOKS

Pflueger, Lynn. Thomas Nast: Political Cartoonist. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2000.

Shirley, David. Thomas Nast: Cartoonist and Illustrator. New York: Franklin Watts, 1998.

PERIODICALS

Murrell, William. "Nast, Gladiator of the Political Pencil." American Scholar (Autumn 1936): 472–85.

WEB SITES

HarpWeek Presents the World of Thomas Nast.http://www.thomasnast.com/ (accessed on September 4, 2006).

"Political Cartoons of Thomas Nast." United States Senate.http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/exhibit/nast_cartoons.htm (accessed on September 4, 2006).

"Thomas Nast Biography." The Ohio State University Libraries: Cartoon Research Library.http://cartoons.osu.edu/nast/bio.htm (accessed on September 4, 2006).