December 16, 1999
Looking at the Work of a Pioneering Cartoonist
By MICHAEL POLLAK
ot so long ago, political cartoonists were regarded as
hired hacks. Illustrators did
the job of today's paparazzi, targets
of caricature were selected for their
moneymaking potential, and editorial cartoonists would take on the coloration of their employers.
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A self-portrait from the Thomas
Nast home page.
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Thomas Nast was different. The
man who gave Republicans their elephant, Democrats their donkey, Santa Claus his modern girth and William Marcy Tweed his walking papers was a passionate and often pestering loyalist to his ideals -- including the Union, Republicanism and
anti-racism. With the influential Harper's Weekly as his public gallery, he
dominated his art form during the
Civil War and Reconstruction years.
Fittingly, two especially prolific
Nast sites on the Internet are creations by admiring cartoonists.
The Thomas Nast home page (www.buffnet.net/~starmist/nast/
main.htm) credits a 1974 Dover Publications collection for much of its
extensive online material. It has a
main biography and separate sections on Nast's Civil War work, his
role in bringing down the corrupt
Tweed ring in New York City, his
concern for the rights of blacks,
American Indians and Chinese immigrants, and his Santa Claus illustrations. There are scores of Nast
drawings posted on the site.
The site was created by Joel A.
Coughlin, 26, an aspiring newspaper
cartoonist in Buffalo who became a
fan of Nast's in high school. "I was
instantly attracted to his wicked
sense of humor and his beautiful
style of drawing," Mr. Coughlin
wrote in an e-mail message.
Nast's popular images of Santa
Claus are a special attraction on the
site. "Before Nast created his version, St. Nicholas had been pictured
as everything from a stern patriarch
in bishop's robes to a gnomelike
creature in a frock coat and pantaloons," Mr. Coughlin wrote.
Nast was born in Germany in 1840
and came to America at age 6. He
had to drop out of art school at 15 to
help support his family, and he got an
illustrator's job with Frank Leslie's
Illustrated Newspaper, where he began attacking official corruption. He
also traveled to cover popular subjects like European prizefights and
Garibaldi's war of Italian unification
before focusing on Civil War illustrations. His allegorical drawings for
Harper's Weekly, which he joined
early in 1862, aroused Northern patriotic fervor and made him a nationally known figure.
"During the 25 years following the
close of the war, Nast's cartoons
expressed the artist's views on every
national issue of political and social
significance," the site notes. "They
were, in fact, an illustrated chronicle
of American history during this period. Every presidential candidate
whom he supported was elected and
his successful campaign in 1870-71 to
depose the corrupt 'Boss' Tweed of
Tammany Hall in New York City
added to his fame."
For a look at Nast's and other
Harper's Weekly illustrations from
1876 to 1880, there is a richly illustrated site, Images of American Cultures
in the 1870's (www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is182/assignment7hp.html), by Prof. Mary Kay Duggan at the University
of California at Berkeley. It was designed for a course, Print, Literacy
and Power: To 1900, about the impact of print on society.
Perhaps the richest online trove of
Nast lore comes from Draper Hill,
the political cartoonist and the historian for the Association of American
Editorial Cartoonists. The association's online History Corner is at
www.detnews.com/AAEC/history.html and includes several articles
on Nast by Mr. Hill, who is working on a biography of Nast.
"Nast Comes to the Aid of Fort
Sumter" deals with Nast's fanciful,
pre-Harper's Weekly speculations on
relieving the besieged fort with balloon airlifts. In "Thomas Nast's Difficulties Covering the First Presidential Impeachment," Mr. Hill
chronicles the ironic panoramas
Nast had prepared to illustrate what
he had expected to be the conviction
and removal of President Andrew
Johnson, whose perceived Southern
sympathy was hated by Nast as
much as Johnson's imminent successor, Ulysses S. Grant, was beloved.
Johnson escaped removal by one
vote, and some of Nast's anti-Johnson cartoons were never published in
his lifetime.
"Nast, only 27 at the time of the
impeachment controversy, was already saluted as the most important
master of his craft yet to have
emerged in the United States, a position he still holds in 1999," Mr. Hill
writes.
Nast's hero, Grant, has his own
home page, and one of its chapters,
www.mscomm.com/~ulysses
/page136.html, details the close
friendship between the cartoonist
and the general. The site includes a
quote from President Grant in 1869:
"Two things elected me. The sword
of Sheridan and the pencil of Nast."
Related Sites
These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web, and The Times has no control over their content or availability.
www.buffnet.net/~starmist/nast/
main.htm
www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is182/assignment7hp.html
www.detnews.com/AAEC/history.html
www.mscomm.com/~ulysses/page136.html
