Thomas Nast

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Thomas Nast was a celebrity. In 1873, following his successful campaign against New York City’s Tweed Ring, he was billed as “The Prince of Caricaturists” for a lecture tour that lasted seven months. Nast used his Harper’s Weekly cartoons to crusade against New York City’s political boss William Magear Tweed, and he devised the Tammany tiger for this crusade. He popularized the elephant to symbolize the Republican Party and the donkey as the symbol for the Democratic Party, and created the "modern" image of Santa Claus. Following his death on December 7, 1902, Thomas Nast’s obituary in Harper’s Weekly stated, "He has been called, perhaps not with accuracy, but with substantial justice, the Father of American Caricature."

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Thomas Nast text only version

	Thomas Nast was a celebrity. In 1873, following his successful campaign against New York City’s Tweed Ring, he was billed as “The Prince of Caricaturists” for a lecture tour that lasted seven months. Nast used his Harper’s Weekly cartoons to crusade against New York City’s political boss William Magear Tweed, and he devised the Tammany tiger for this crusade. He popularized the elephant to symbolize the Republican Party and the donkey as the symbol for the Democratic Party, and created the "modern" image of Santa Claus. Following his death on December 7, 1902, Thomas Nast’s obituary in Harper’s Weekly stated, "He has been called, perhaps not with accuracy, but with substantial justice, the Father of American Caricature."

		Thomas Nast: Prince of Caricaturists is funded by The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library, Department of History, School of Journalism and Communication, and Friends of the Libraries with additional support from the Ohio Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.


	All text and image links within this website will open in a new window. If you have trouble accessing this page, please contact cartoons@osu.edu All content is © copyright The Ohio State University Libraries 2002.
			[Self-caricature] detail, Harper's Weekly, December 2, 1876, cover.