50 Facts About Thomas Nast

Thomas Nast was a German-born American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist often considered to be the "Father of the American Cartoon".

Thomas Nast was a critic of Democratic Representative "Boss" Tweed and the Tammany Hall Democratic party political machine.

Thomas Nast created a modern version of Santa Claus and the political symbol of the elephant for the Republican Party.

Contrary to popular belief, Nast did not create Uncle Sam, Columbia, or the Democratic donkey, although he did popularize those symbols through his artwork.

Thomas Nast was associated with the magazine Harper's Weekly from 1859 to 1860 and from 1862 until 1886.

Thomas Nast was born in military barracks in Landau, Bavaria, Germany, as his father was a trombonist in the Bavarian 9th regiment band.

Thomas Nast had an older sister Andie; two other siblings had died before he was born.

Thomas Nast's father held political convictions that put him at odds with the Bavarian government, so in 1846, Joseph Nast left Landau, enlisting first on a French man-of-war and subsequently on an American ship.

Thomas Nast sent his wife and children to New York City, where they arrived in June 1846, and at the end of his enlistment in 1850, he joined them there.

Thomas Nast attended school in New York City from the age of six to 14.

Thomas Nast did poorly at his lessons, but his passion for drawing was apparent from an early age.

Thomas Nast's drawings appeared for the first time in Harper's Weekly on March 19,1859, when he illustrated a report exposing police corruption; Nast was 18 years old at that point.

In February 1860, he went to England for the New York Illustrated News to depict one of the major sporting events of the era, the prize fight between the American John C Heenan and the English Thomas Sayers sponsored by George Wilkes, publisher of Wilkes' Spirit of the Times.

Thomas Nast left the New York Illustrated News to work again, briefly, for Frank Leslie's Illustrated News.

Thomas Nast was known for drawing battlefields in border and southern states.

Thomas Nast was baptized a Catholic at the Saint Maria Catholic Church in Landau, and for a time received Catholic education in New York City.

When Thomas Nast converted to Protestantism remains unclear, but his conversion was likely formalized upon his marriage in 1861.

Thomas Nast portrayed public support for religious education as a threat to democratic government.

Thomas Nast favored nonsectarian public education that mitigated differences of religion and ethnicity.

Thomas Nast expressed anti-Irish sentiment by depicting them as violent drunks.

Thomas Nast used Irish people as a symbol of mob violence, machine politics, and the exploitation of immigrants by political bosses.

Thomas Nast was physically small and had experienced bullying as a child.

An 1876 Thomas Nast cartoon combined a caricature of Charles Francis Adams Sr with anti-Irish sentiment and anti-Fenianship.

Thomas Nast advocated the abolition of slavery, opposed racial segregation, and deplored the violence of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things, a Thomas Nast cartoon depicting a drunken Irishman lighting a powder keg.

Thomas Nast introduced into American cartoons the practice of modernizing scenes from Shakespeare for a political purpose.

Thomas Nast brought his approach to bear on the usually prosaic almanac business, publishing an annual Thomas Nast's Illustrated Almanac from 1871 to 1875.

Thomas Nast's drawings were instrumental in the downfall of Boss Tweed, the powerful Tammany Hall leader.

Thomas Nast pressed his attack in the pages of Harper's, and the Ring was removed from power in the election of November 7,1871.

Thomas Nast was the first journalist who did not own his newspaper to play a major role in shaping public opinion.

Thomas Nast's biting cartoons ridiculed the losers: George B McClellan ; Horatio Seymour ; Horace Greeley ; Samuel J Tilden ; and James G Blaine.

The single most important and influential cartoon that Thomas Nast ever drew appeared in Harper's Weekly on August 24,1864 as the Democratic National Committee was assembling in Chicago to nominate McClellan for President.

Lincoln's reelection managers took Thomas Nast's cartoon, added "The Rebel Terms of Peace," and made more than a million copies as campaign posters.

In 1873, Thomas Nast toured the United States as a lecturer and a sketch-artist.

Hayes later remarked that Thomas Nast was "the most powerful, single-handed aid [he] had", but Thomas Nast quickly became disillusioned with President Hayes, whose lenient policy towards the South in removing federal troops he opposed.

Thomas Nast's cartoons appeared less frequently, and he was not given free rein to criticize Hayes or his policies.

Curtis believed that the powerful weapon of caricature should be reserved for "the Ku-Klux Democracy" of the opposition party, and did not approve of Thomas Nast's cartoons assailing Republicans such as Carl Schurz and Charles Sumner who opposed policies of the Grant administration.

Between 1877 and 1884, Thomas Nast's work appeared only sporadically in Harper's, which began publishing the milder political cartoons of William Allen Rogers.

Thomas Nast was one of the few editorial artists who took up for the cause of the Chinese in America.

Thomas Nast submitted no cartoons to Harper's between the end of March 1883 and March 1,1884, partly because of illness.

In 1884, Curtis and Nast agreed that they could not support the Republican candidate James G Blaine, a proponent of high tariffs and the spoils system whom they perceived as personally corrupt.

Thomas Nast's cartoons helped Cleveland become the first Democrat to be elected President since 1856.

Thomas Nast lost most of his fortune in 1884 after investing in a banking and brokerage firm operated by the swindler Ferdinand Ward.

In need of income, Thomas Nast returned to the lecture circuit in 1884 and 1887.

Thomas Nast contributed cartoons in various publications, notably the Illustrated American, but was unable to regain his earlier popularity.

Now returned to the Republican fold, Thomas Nast used the Weekly as a vehicle for his cartoons supporting Benjamin Harrison for president.

The failure of Thomas Nast's Weekly left Thomas Nast with few financial resources.

Thomas Nast received a few commissions for oil paintings and drew book illustrations.

Thomas Nast accepted the position and traveled to Ecuador on July 1,1902.

Thomas Nast's body was returned to the United States, where he was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.