Thomas nast cartoons explained
Thomas Nast's cartoon depicting William Magear Tweed with a money bag for a head. It has been called one of the city's "grandest" of civic monuments. The building often goes by another name — the Tweed Courthouse — and this stands as a monument of a different sort, to scandal, greed and a reminder that there's nothing new about audacious political corruption. Its nickname comes from the great granddaddy of government swindlers — "Boss" Tweed, New York City's virtuoso of graft.
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Thomas Nast cartoon, Harper’s Weekly, March 15, 1873
Earlier in this roundtable of hate Alex Buchet wrote about racism in European kids comics. Among other things, he pointed out that the skill of the rendering in this case compounded rather than excused the crappiness of the comics.
Skill used in pursuit of vice is itself a vice, not a virtue. I think this also arguably applies to the work of Thomas Nast. Loewen first points to the illustration below. Such idiotic legislators could obviously be discounted as the white North contemplated giving up on black civil rights.
This sort of imagery and language was the basis for years of Jim Crow. Moreover, this vision of Reconstruction still undergirds neo-Confederate sentiment and racism to this day. But the second cartoon is only more painful when compared to the first. But, clearly, Nast did know better, and was perfectly capable of drawing black people without using caricature when he felt like it. He became more racist over time, not less. His racism was a function of his era, but it was not a function of simply living in the past.
Rather, he was racist specifically because he was capitulating to a society which was becoming more racist — and not only was he capitulating, but he was actively encouraging that transformation.
America betrayed its ideals…and Nast betrayed his own right along with those of his country. Cartoonists who chose not too — like Nast in , or McCay and Eisner later — or Crumb later than that — were making a choice. He used his considerable skills evident even in these crappy scans to make caricature look natural and feasible, to ridicule the weak, and to portray the Reconstruction period as one of chaos and monstrosity.
If he were a lesser artist, the drawing would be less effectively racist. But even beyond the utilitarian argument, the second drawing seems more evil because we know, from the first, that Nast is capable of seeing and depicting black people as human.
His betrayal is more thorough because there is a talent and a vision there to betray. Click here for the Anniversary Index of Hate. Good piece, but perhaps a little too easy, Noah? I had hoped you would open up a new, unexpected flank here…. Anyway, that image of the black legislators is very close, down to specific imagery, of the similar scene in D.
Probably, and depressingly, the latter…. If you disgrace your race in this way you had better take back seats. Thank you for that vital clarification, Pepo. To deliberately distort the meaning of a cartoon by omitting its caption reveals a disgraceful agenda. Noah Berlatsky belongs in the same camp as those turbaned fanatics raging, rioting, burning, and murdering against cartoons of Mohammed.
You have had an agenda, you have produced propaganda to further that agenda, and basic research was nowhere on your to do list. Text is an integral component of all cartoons from that era. Yet you have written an article full of opinions about what an image represents without having even bothered to find out what the image was actually about. Or did your source fail to cover that? Nast drew a vicious blackface caricature to show that blacks were incapable of governing during Reconstruction.
That ties into neoConfederate narratives which were used to create years of Jim Crow. I have to say, I never thought in a million years that this would be a controversial post. Just goes to show…. Blackface caricature in support of neo-Confederacy… ————————. It was in the election of that the erosion of the wartime-postwar alliance became evident.
In that year the Liberal Republican party emerged as an anti-Grant breakaway group, and New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley became the presidential candidate on both the Liberal Republican and Democratic tickets. But by itself that is not enough to explain why Greeley, arguably the most influential voice of early antislavery Republicanism and the fight against the slave oligarchy of the South, would leave the party he had done so much to create and accept the nomination of a Democratic party tainted by pro-Southernism and Negrophobia.
Nor does it explain why so many other editors, reformers, and Republican leaders in the fight against slavery and secession supported him…. Curtis was at the heart of the journalist-genteel reformer alliance that was the backbone of the Liberal Republican movement. Not surprisingly, tensions between Curtis and Nast mounted. Their differences were not only a matter of ideology, but of social-cultural milieux, and even of journalistic style.
I try to hit the enemy between the eyes and knock him down. See figs. But Nast could not indefinitely resist the changes in American political culture that were moving intellectuals, cultural journalists, and political reformers away from the causes of the War and Reconstruction, and toward a political stance that dwelt on the dangers of political corruption, that feared strikes and radicalism, that was indifferent to African American civil rights.
Nast continued to respond with some of his old fire to violence against Southern blacks, and to sympathize with the plight of Native Americans Indian and Chinese immigrants. But these were insecurely held views, as the Civil War era commitment to equal American citizenship gave way to racist doubts. Indians on the warpath were to be met by a strengthened army, not by the reductions in military spending championed by ex-Copperhead Democrats. Racist stereotypy of blacks began to appear: comparable to those of the Irish—though in contrast with the presumably more highly civilized Chinese.
Nast came to echo reformers such as Curtis and Godkin not only in matters of race, but on economic and class issues. Financially secure himself, and solidly grounded in mid-nineteenth century Liberalism, he had little use for paper money inflation and less for radicalism; an attitude reinforced by events such as the Haymarket explosion in Chicago, when an anarchist bomb killed several policemen.
Along with Curtis and Godkin, he supported Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland, who championed civil service reform, against machine Republican candidate James G. See fig. Thanks for the background on Nast. As I said, his change of heart mirrored that of the nation as a whole…which makes it more depressing, not less, in a lot of ways. The post-Reconstruction abandonment of racial idealism is one of the most shameful and horrifying chapters in American history.
Thanks for this. If anything, the racist caricature is made worse by the contempt in which Nast apparently held poor whites. Loewen who I talk about a bit in the essay is great in his discussion of the way the end of racial idealism post Reconstruction resulted in increased prejudice against basically everybody — definitely black people, but also Jews, white ethnics, Catholics….
The US just became a more racist society in every way. Echoes of today? And today, with whites on their way to becoming something of a minority…. Good job, Noah. That is, it was a political shift, rather than a demographic shift causing a political shift. The US now is way, way less racist than back then…and I think in concrete ways even less racist than a few years ago because of electing a black president.
I was speaking off the top of my head. Without a doubt that small minority has been shouting louder these past few years. I wrote about related issues here recently. I do caution those who feel Nast went from a compassionate Liberal Republican and devolved to a Democratic-leaning racist. Comparing images side by side with several years in between is tempting to do.
There is nothing wrong with comparing, for those comparisons are striking, but I urge those to look at the drawing in context of whatever news event may have occurred. I have been studying Nast for several years and am wrapping up a masters thesis on him. As an American of mostly Irish-Catholic heritage, his treatment of the Irish intrigued me.
One big clarification, his move to support Grover Cleveland was not so much a conversion to the Democratic Party, but more for a complete disdain, mistrust and perhaps hatred of Blaine. Nast saw Blaine as a Republican who had turned on his principles, particularly where Chinese Exclusion was concerned.
In my view, when any group acted stupidly, threw away their vote as Blacks did to Democrats and the Irish did for Tweed or to their church, Nast went on attack with his pen.
He was not an inherent racist. He was the first to portray African Americans as normal. His antipathy with the Irish was directly related to their willingness to be manipulated by Tweed. Nast was born a Catholic, but he and his family did not believe in the infallability of the Roman Church. I was quite horrified to learn that most Irish Catholics were against abolition. Nast had issues with public monies supporting private -religious schools. When Nast moved from being a news illustrator to a editorial cartoonist, he did what master caricaturists do and continue to do, use set stereotypes and visual shorthand.
Think Richard Nixon ski-jump nose. There are pictures of normal white people — Columbia laying laurels on white policeman. They may be Irish. If they did nothing wrong, he did not caricaturize them.
If they attacked Chinese, the Irish became apes and thugs. If he needed to make a quick visual point to highlight diversity, out would come the feathers for the Native Americans, the straw hat and big lips of an African American, the jaw-jutting Irish Simian, the pajama clad, queued-ponytail of the Chinese. To our sensibilities, these images are offensive — but Nast had reasons — usually political and newsworthy reasons — to go on the attack. Sometimes he just drew people and no one who knew who they were…but then, if it is that bland a situation — why do a cartoon caricature of it?
He is intentionally making it ugly — for shock value — to expose a hypocrisy — sometimes to throw the audiences thoughts right back at them — starkly. Curtis was pushing for a broader interest magazine.
More illustrations — more romantic depictions of far way places. Curtis wanted him less controversial. As far as the Irish today are concerned, they have successfully uproared loud enough to keep Nast out of the Hall of Fame. Utter nonsense.
Political Cartoons, Part 4: 1900-1950
Tweed never served as mayor. The public offices he held at times were always minor. Yet Tweed, hovering on the fringe of government, was by far the most powerful politician in the city. His organization, known to insiders simply as "The Ring," collected millions of dollars in illegal graft. Tweed was ultimately brought down by newspaper reporting, mainly in the pages of the New York Times.
Thomas Nast Collection
The title alludes to the old ca. On a pseudo-heraldic shield are portrayed a black family between a lynched body hanging from a tree and the remains of a burning schoolhouse, with the caption "Worse than Slavery". This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus years or fewer. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published or registered with the U. Copyright Office before January 1, From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. File information. Structured data. Captions Captions English Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents.
Thomas Nast's Campaign Against Boss Tweed
Lawrence R. Studies in American Humor 1 October ; 1 2 : — In this book, the author finds fifty-one such instances that occurred between and , and he expands on thirty-one incidents or artists that have met with significant resistance. What makes this book important, though, is the reputation and history of its author.
Thomas Nast
While the caricature may not always be taken seriously as a medium, the political cartoons featured here have had the power to inspire, outrage or amuse. It has been widely pastiched by later artists including Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell. The cartoon, amongst other controversial caricatures by fellow cartoonists including Art Young and HJ Glintenkamp, prompted the US Post Office to stop delivering the magazine, citing a violation of the Espionage Act, resulting in a legal battle and the eventual closure of the publication. Published in the aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre — during which hundreds of protestors who gathered to demand parliamentary reform were injured and a further 15 killed when cavalrymen charged the scene — The Political House That Jack Built , published by satirist William Hone and illustrated by George Cruickshank, was a radical tract denouncing the authoritarianism of the British government. An extremely popular publication based on the similarly named nursery rhyme, The House That Jack Built sold an estimated , copies between and
Deciphering Political Cartoons
As the election cycle gets into full-swing, so do the pundits, journalists, and political cartoonists. While modern readers intrinsically link newspapers and political cartoons, the use of cartoons in the American media was minimal until Thomas Nast popularized them in the s and s. Today he is best remembered for his cartoons about Boss Tweed and the Tammany Ring. Thomas Nast at his Desk. Museum of the City of New York. Portrait Archive.
Paradoxically, Nast's Civil War contribution for the genre is still substantially undervalued. This study of Nast's obscure Lincoln caricature symbolizes and documents his neglected work, but it only scratches the surface of his broader untapped portfolio for the period. This preeminent nineteenth-century popular artist cut his professional teeth on the primitive edges of Abraham Lincoln's emerging pictorial image. This is the way the North receives it.
This print mocks Reconstruction by making several allusions to Shakespeare. The top left shows a riot in Memphis and at the top a riot in New Orleans. At the bottom, Johnson is trying to charm a Confederate Copperhead. General Benjamin Butler is at the bottom left, accepting the Confederate surrender of New Orleans in This scene is contrasted to the bottom right where General Philips Sheridan bows to Louisiana Attorney General Andrew Herron in , implying a defeat for Reconstruction. Click on the image for more information.
He remembers him as a gentle and witty companion, as the creator of our conception of Santa Claus, as a sad and lonely man whose life ended poignantly in a foreign land. The following article is excerpted from this biographical reminiscence. The elder Nast, my great-grandfather, while not an agitator, was a man of liberal ideas; and in view of the political turmoil then prevalent in Germany his friendly commandant suggested that America might be a better place for a man so fond of free speech. So it was that my grandfather, then six years old, and his mother and older sister departed for the United States in and settled in New York. Nast senior followed four years later after serving out his enlistment. The young German boy was handicapped by not being able to speak a word of English.
In his year career with the magazine, Nast drew approximately 2, cartoons. Few disagree that Nast contributed a rare, positive voice for Chinese American immigrants — setting him apart from the work of his peers. Consider, for example, the works of George F.
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