today we're looking at thomas and asked in american political cartoons
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the questions down in the description political cartoons have a long history
in american culture as cartoons have become an easily understood method of conveying ideas and
commentaries or opinions about what is going on in our government or society many historians
argue that benjamin franklin was responsible for the first political cartoon in american history
in 1754 with his joiner die snake illustration attempting to convince the american colonies
that they they needed to join together under his albany plan of union as the french indian war was
beginning otherwise the colonies might die but one could argue that political cartoons in america
did not come into their own until the mid to late 1800s with the illustrations of thomas nast who
some call the father of american cartoon nast was born in landau germany on september 27 1840
and by the age of six his family had immigrated to america moving to new york city nast attended
school in new york until he was 14 years old but he was not very good at being a student as far as
you know being interested in math or history or anything he was far more interested in drawing
and by 1856 he started working for frank leslie's illustrated newspaper as an illustrator and then
three years later he had his first illustration published by harper's weekly which was one of the
most read weekly newspapers in the nation by 1860 he was working for the new york illustrated news
and just before the american civil war began he traveled to europe to create illustrations
about many stories there and by the time the first shots of the civil war occurred at fort sumter in
april of 16 1861 nast was back in new york city and shortly after in september of 1861 he married
sarah edwards whom he had been courting for a few years and together they would have five children
as the civil war began to grow in its magnitude the demand for reports and visual representations
of the battlefields grew and since photography was still somewhat in its infancy the need for skilled
illustrators to travel with the armies was high nast joined the staff of harper's weekly in 1862
and immediately began to get notoriety for his detailed scenes of battle and camp life of the
typical soldier nast was a republican and very critical of the institution of slavery and the
south and many of his drawings expressed those ideas nast used his cartoons to help campaign
for abraham lincoln in 1864 and later for ulysses s grant when he ran for president as the civil
war came to an end in 1865 some of nash's most famous cartoons were focused on reconstruction
politics and in fact nast was responsible for the creating of the elephant symbol for the republican
party and the donkey to represent the democratic party which are still the symbols used to this day
most of nasa cartoons were against racial segregation they were favorable of abolition
of slavery and many attacked new racist institutions such as the ku klux klan
although many of his illustrations displayed these ideas some were very critical of irish immigrants
and and very anti-catholic church arguably one of nasa's most famous editorial cartoons was
his series of illustrations that were critical of new york state senator william boss tweed's
political machine in new york city tweed and his associates basically stole millions of dollars
from the city of new york by inflating the prices and payouts to contractors
doing jobs for the city nass drew several cartoons criticizing and exposing the
corruption in new york city and tweed actually offered nast a hundred thousand dollar bribe
to stop drawing the cartoons which nast then negotiated up to five hundred thousand dollars
before refusing to take the bribe tweed was voted out of office in 1871 and then fled to cuba to
avoid arrest but interestingly officials in cuba were able to identify tweed based on nast cartoons
by the 1880s nast had developed differences with many republican politicians and actually supported
several democrats such as winfield scott hancock and grover cleveland for president but then by
the early 1890s he had split with harper's weekly and started his own paper called nast weekly which
now he now used to support republican candidates such as benjamin harrison nass paper ended
up failing leaving him financially ruined he attempted to get several different jobs but was
unsuccessful until president theodore roosevelt who had been a big fan of his cartoons
appointed nass to console general for the united states and ecuador a console is someone that is
a representative of a nation in a foreign country and makes sure citizens of their home nation are
protected in that country in july of 1902 nass moved to ecuador or soon after a yellow fever
outbreak occurred nass contracted yellow fever and died on december 7th of 1902 in ecuador at
the age of 62. nast in his illustrations had a huge impact on american political history
but also on popular culture nast is responsible for the modern depictions of santa claus based
on his drawings as well as our image of uncle sam in a time before television or internet nast used
visual media to express ideas and communicate political ideologies to the american people in
a way never before seen so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching
you