Thomas Nast: The Father of Modern Political Cartoons

Thomas Nast: The Father of Modern Political Cartoons

by Fiona Deans Halloran
Thomas Nast: The Father of Modern Political Cartoons

Thomas Nast: The Father of Modern Political Cartoons

by Fiona Deans Halloran

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Overview

Thomas Nast (1840-1902), the founding father of American political cartooning, is perhaps best known for his cartoons portraying political parties as the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant. Nast's legacy also includes a trove of other political cartoons, his successful attack on the machine politics of Tammany Hall in 1871, and his wildly popular illustrations of Santa Claus for Harper's Weekly magazine. Throughout his career, his drawings provided a pointed critique that forced readers to confront the contradictions around them.

In this thoroughgoing and lively biography, Fiona Deans Halloran focuses not just on Nast's political cartoons for Harper's but also on his place within the complexities of Gilded Age politics and highlights the many contradictions in his own life: he was an immigrant who attacked immigrant communities, a supporter of civil rights who portrayed black men as foolish children in need of guidance, and an enemy of corruption and hypocrisy who idolized Ulysses S. Grant. He was a man with powerful friends, including Mark Twain, and powerful enemies, including William M. "Boss" Tweed. Halloran interprets Nast's work, explores his motivations and ideals, and illuminates Nast's lasting legacy on American political culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781469642352
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 02/01/2018
Pages: 384
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Fiona Deans Halloran teaches history at Rowland Hall-St. Mark's School in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Chapter 1 From Five Points to Frank Leslie's Illustrated News 1

Chapter 2 Early Work and Training 19

Chapter 3 Travel to Europe and Sallie 39

Chapter 4 Compromise with the South 59

Chapter 5 Falling in Love with Grant 91

Chapter 6 Tweed 119

Chapter 7 The Campaign of 1872 145

Chapter 8 Redpath and Wealth 177

Chapter 9 Access and Authority 197

Chapter 10 Conflict with Curtis 221

Chapter 11 The End of an Era 245

Chapter 12 Nast's Weekly and Guayaquil 265

Conclusion: Legacy 283

Notes 293

Bibliography 341

Index 357

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

An excellent, lively, well-researched biography of an important and surprisingly little-discussed figure in American politics and art. It's great fun to read.—Alice Fahs, University of California, Irvine



Thomas Nast towers over all other political cartoonists in American history—brilliant, intensely partisan, and widely influential. Fiona Deans Halloran's biography does full justice to Nast and his work, warts and all. Her book illuminates, among other things, the Civil War's meaning to the generation that preserved the Union, the intense political battles of the postwar decades, and the mid-nineteenth-century world of American artists and illustrators. It is a splendid read.—Gary W. Gallagher, Nau Professor of History, University of Virginia

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