Thomas Nast

Thomas Nast

1840-1846                                                                                                     Childhood: Family

Born the 27^th of September 1840 in Bavaria, in a military barrack in Landau, I was raised by my mother, Appolonia Abriss with my sister Catherine. My father, a well-known musician in the 9^th regiment of the Bavarian band, had found the Bavarian government quite oppressive and wanted to leave the country. This monarchy was ruled by “Mad King Ludwig”. He was mentally challenged and made the life in Bavaria horrible. I had never left my town during the first six years of my short life so naturally it was tough for me and my family to want to leave the place we had called home for so many years. Even if we did end up leaving, we would not know where to go. Life wasn’t so difficult for me, I was just a child. But for my parents, being able to live in the country was hard. My mother always blamed on my father for not doing anything as he spent more time in the regiment than with his family without making life easier. My parents were convinced that leaving the town would be the only solution to live correctly. But where should we go? We had already thought of going to the United States, the land of opportunity. We have heard of the American dream. And we decided to follow that path.

Thomas Nast's town in Bavaria

Mad King Ludwig

                                           Statue of Liberty: Symbol of American Dream and freedom.

 1849                                                                                                             Childhood: Education

When my mother brought me to New York City in 1846, America at that time was the land of opportunity. Many people before us had left to the United Sates believing in the American dream. She was obliged to enroll me in a school. I detested school, as I was not a particularly good student or speller. I flunked most of my examinations. I only attended school from six to fifteen, where I was forced to drop out because of financial problems.

                                  National Academy of Design: Thomas Nast's school.
However my mother never gave up on me and she kept pushing to keep trying. She tried to persuade to develop interests in literature, art, and music. This is when I fell in love with drawing.  I later eventually was enrolled at the National Academy of Design for about a year. Theodore Kaufmann and Alfred Fredericks were my teachers. They were the first professors I ever had. Theodore Kaufmann was born in Uelzen, German. He studied in painting in Düsseldorf. This made me much closer to him. I believe he has really helped me improve my artistic skills. In 1849, thanks in part to the months of searching, hard work and effort from my mother,  I finally got my first job working for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.  Later in 1849, my father joined us in the US. I was so happy to see for I hadn’t seen him for 3 years. He and I were both shocked by how quickly my artistic talents developed.

Theodore Kaufmann

June 11, 1861                                                                                                My early path to success

            Recently, my drawings have been very successful. Just last week, I was sent by my newspaper to see a boxing fight in Farnborough, England. Although bare knuckle fighting is illegal in most of the United States, John Heenan claims to be the American champion in this sport. I was one of several journalists to attend the battle between Tom Sayers and John Heenan. Tom Sayers was sponsored by George Wilkes, publisher of Wilkes' Spirit of the Times.  To many people’s surprise, “the American boy” defeated the English bare-knuckle prize fighter. In my cartoon, I depicted the excitement of people as they went on trains to see a fight. Some people were even climbing on trees eager to get glimpses of the fight. When British champion Tom Sayers got knocked out by John “Venucia Boy” Heenan, the crowd, full of the two thousand five hundred people, erupted. They were all chocked that their national winner had fallen to the American.

 After having made that incredible artwork, I was recruited by “The Illustrated London News” and sent to Italy. A few months later, as artist for The Illustrated London News, I joined Garibaldi in Italy. Those trips gave me the opportunity to discover the outside world. My cartoons and articles about Garibaldi’s military campaign to unify Italy captured the popular imagination in the U.S.

In 1861, I married Sarah Edwards, whom I met two years earlier. This is the engraving that turned my career around and brought me my first experience of true success.  

November 21^st 1862                                                                                                                 Hired!

            I have recently been hired at a well-known magazine called Harper’s Weekly. I had been trying to win this job for a year and at last I had earned it. I was hired as a freelance artist. I expected to make many cartoons to support my political points of view and also support what I thought was right for the city of New York and the United States of America.  It had come to my attention that the start of the next Presidential Election was quickly approaching September 1863. I, a Republican, wanted to attempt to help the current president Abraham Lincoln who is running for reelection. Of course, I may have changed my mind depending on who had run against him in the Republican Party but I was convinced Lincoln is the best option to lead our great nation. I was very excited to contribute to a campaign of the Republican Party. I also attempted to take advantage of my new high position and tried to change the way most people thought about certain things. For example, with Christmas approaching I decided to pitch a new idea for the way we think about Santa Claus, because I think that since Santa Claus was made up for kids that he should have a more friendly, and kind image rather than a mysterious tall old man. I thought it would be interesting to give the Republican and Democratic parties a sort of symbol to recognize them easier. I had lots of big plans for my career and I was very excited to start at Harper’s Weekly. A couple weeks after being hired, I began designing a new image for Santa Claus; little did I know it would become so famous.

1863                                                                                                                                    Santa Claus  

    
      I remember when I created my own final version of Santa Claus on January 4, 1863. I worked for Harper’s Weekly and wanted to help memorialize the sacrifices of the Union soldiers. The early days of that year were the darkest days of the Civil War for the North. I supported the North, Lincoln, and Grant. To bring hope to the people and bring their morals up, I decided to remind the people what Christmas is really about. I published in Harper’s Weekly a picture of the friendliest and most loving figure I could think of, the happiness and gift maker, Santa Claus.  I used the image of Saint Nicholas to inspire me. This fourth century bishop was known for his kindness and generosity. In German Christian tradition, when I was a child, Saint Nicholas Day, December 6, was a day of celebrating and gift giving. I combined the images of Saint Nicholas and my past sketches of Santa to create this final version: a round, friendly, old, bearded man in a red suit. During the Civil War, Christmas was a traditional festival celebration but eventually, it became a commercialized holiday. The image I made for him is still used and has been integrated into the American culture. I still see reprints of my drawings nowadays in markets. After experiencing such success I decided I needed to use my talents for something larger than just symbols, I wanted to get involved in politics.

Santa Claus before Thomas Nast

                                                                                                    Santa Claus by Thomas Nast

                                  

 July 10, 1871                                                                                                    My public political enemies

            It had come to my attention that our commissionaire William Tweed had become quite corrupt. I had recently tried to get involved in politics and decided I could take advantage of this scandal to show New Yorkers all about his corruption. I had been told that he bought several benches for 5 dollar apiece and sold them to New York for 600 dollars each. He has also used tax payer’s money to build City Hall Park. He initially said the project would cost about 350,000 dollars but it ended up costing over 13,000,000 dollars. His corruption must be stopped so I will take some responsibility upon myself to show the people of New York what he is doing.

When I discovered his corruption, I published a drawing called “Who stole the people’s money?” In this drawing I put corrupt officials standing in a circle all saying “’Twas him!”

 This cartoon ended up becoming very successful. In fact, William Tweed became so worried that the people would discover his corruption that he offered me 500,000 dollars to stop publishing cartoons about him. At first, I was tempted to accept because I make only 5,000 dollars a year, and this bribe would make me much richer but I ended up rejecting the bribe because I was determined to end Tweed and the Tammany party’s corruption. I swore to never back down until the Tweed ring leaders were arrested. I was quite successful in showing a very negative image for Tweed but I couldn’t get him to resign power. After several weeks other members of the Democratic were tired of William and turned on him. They also began to give me and other newspapers information about Boss Tweed’s corruption. Finally in April he was arrested. I felt much better about myself after helping to arrest Tweed. I started to become much more respected around my neighborhood and it felt great. I hoped if I could keep it up I may earn a promotion. I decided I wanted to continue my political campaign and get involved in the upcoming presidential election.

1872 and civil war                                                                Thomas Nast and Presidential Figures

                      

           In 1872, President Grant was the candidate of the Republican Party. As a Republican, I decided to support him. His opponent Horace Greeley, from the Republican liberal/democratic party*, made up scandals to demoralize Grant. I drew a caricature supporting the north and defending Grant’s Party. In this piece, the president is represented dancing with Lady Liberty. On it, I inscribed the words “Thank You, Grant”. People loved it and Grant was easily re-elected. In parallel, I sketched another caricature ridiculing the Liberal Party. 

                                   

          Harper’s Weekly contributed a lot to the civil war, in favor of the north. My Christmas drawing of Santa Claus, a picture of the friendliest and most loving figure I could think of, helped families, and other cartoons supported the North and Lincoln. As a result, Lincoln and I became friends. “Thomas Nast is our best recruiting sergeant”, claimed the president.

The illustration features eight images on the patriotic theme “United We Stand". The key image is in the center, and features President Abraham Lincoln.  It shows Mr. Lincoln bringing peace to the country, and joining together Northern and Southern brothers. I was starting to become quite famous. I was receiving lots of compliments on my cartoons. I wanted to see if I could use this fame and transform it into a sort of propaganda to show people my points of view and try to convince them to share my point of view.

*The Liberal Republican Party of the United States was a political party that was organized in May 1872, to oppose the reelection of President Ulysses S. Grant and his Radical Republican supporters.

1873                                                                                                                  Political Cartoons

I was a Republican mostly because I was raised in a Protestant family; my family had a strong influence on my political opinions. Using my artistic skills, I decided to support my ideas by making political cartoons. This idea later evolved and developed. I then started using my political cartoons to help political candidates succeed in being elected and also demoted democrat candidates. The two United States presidents Ulysses Grant and Rutherford Hayes were partially elected because of my merciless sarcastic representations of the other candidates. I even ridiculed Horace Greeley to help Grant get elected. After this, my family became very close to his family. We often had dinner with the president. I also remember Hayes publically announcing that I was “the most powerful, single-handed aid [he] had”. I also gained the title of “prince of the caricaturists”. As a staunch republican I deliberately chose the elephant to symbolize the great strength, intelligence, and power of the republicans. I decided to pick the donkey to represent the Democratic Party. Although this symbol was created during the presidency of the democrat Andrew Jackson in the 1830s, the sign of the rooster was proposed as a new symbol. In 1870, I revitalized the symbol of the donkey making cartoons. Nowadays, these symbols are being adopted by other cartoonists; the elephant and donkey have concretized as the republican and democrat symbols. I think this greatly improved the Republican image.

                          

Horace Greeley & the Democratic Party   Horace Greeley                       

1874                                                                                                                                    Religion

                                       

         After having created political cartoon symbols for the Democratic and Republican parties, I decided to get involved in religious cartoons. I, and many other people, believed that Catholicism is a threat to American values. It inspires the wrong beliefs. I first depicted Catholic priests as crocodiles endangering children in my drawing “The American River Ganges”.                                             

I have also caricaturized the Roman Catholic Church, Irish Catholics, and the Mormon Church. In another one of my engravings, I describe these forms of Christianity as reptiles walking all over the people.

I had often been criticized for these drawings and accused of being a bigot and prejudiced. However, I often ignored the negative criticism because I refuse to change my point of view due to the opinion of others. Others have called me a nativist. A nativist was someone who tries to protect fellow inhabitants from others and their ideas.  I have a very strong opinion on religion and I believe that many churches are just trying to convince more and more people to come to church, get married in the church, eventually sign their kids up for Catholic school so that the priests and other teachers could poison their minds with whatever information they wanted and brainwash them. Eventually these kids would spend lots of money donating to the churches and also spend money on indulgence. Indulgence is when people pay the church to let the dead people from their families move to heaven, which is from my point of view, theft. Catholics also pay the church when getting married at churches and sign their future kids up thus beginning a very long cycle in which the church continues to make more and more money. I am almost certain that the leaders of these churches are quite corrupt and I really want to show the people who spend so much money in churches that they should consider whether their money is really being spent wisely.  It took a while for people to understand my point of view on Catholicism. For a while I felt like many people hated me. I decided to stop making so many drawings but instead I tried to show people that they should watch how much money they spend. Finally after a few weeks many people began to agree with me. I soon realized how many supporters I had and that many people shared my opinions. 

1902                                                                                                                                 Late life

In 1902, the new president Theodore Roosevelt nominated me United States ‘Consul in Guayaquil in Ecuador. I stayed for a numerous number of diplomatic missions. The life in South America was very harsh. I later got bitten by a mosquito, it was infected. A disease developed in me. I am optimistic about my chances of survival. I choose to stay, even with the pain of the yellow fever, to finish my mission in Guayaquil, hoping to be able beat this disease. I am beginning to think about what I have done with my life, and what I could have done differently. I believe I have done a lot for the United States and for New York City. I have influenced thousands of people and attempted to show them my points of view. I hope that people remember my struggles and efforts to help our great nation. I can only hope my five wonderful kids are living happily now and have big plans in the future to continue my legacy. I wish I could have spent more time with them. I had spent so much time interfering with politics and corruption I had not been able to spend as much time with my wife and kids as I should have. My parents had done so much for me by bringing me to America and investing in my education and I don’t feel like I was as good to my kids. As I look back on it all I do have some regrets but I can’t let them overshadow my achievements. If I am lucky enough to survive yellow fever I will be convinced this disease was a sign that it is time for me to retire.