Nast, Thomas, 1840–1902, American caricaturist, illustrator, and painter, b. Landau, Germany. He was brought to the United States in 1846. He began his career as a draftsman for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly. He was sent to England by the New York Illustrated News, served (1860) as artist correspondent in Garibaldi's campaign, contributing sketches to English, French, and American papers, and attracted wide attention with his cartoons of the Civil War, published in Harper's Weekly. He is best known for his clever and forceful political and personal cartoons, which were instrumental in breaking the corrupt Tweed Ring in New York City. It was Nast who created the tiger, the elephant, and the donkey as political symbols of Tammany Hall, the Republican party, and the Democratic party. Nast was also an illustrator of note and a painter in oil. He died at Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he was American consul general.

Bibliography

See study by M. Keller (1968).

Nast, Thomas

Thomas Nast, self-portrait etching, 1892

(credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born Sept. 27, 1840, Landau, Baden—died Dec. 7, 1902, Guayaquil, Ecua.) German-born U.S. political cartoonist. He arrived in the U.S. at six, and from 1862 to 1886 he worked as a cartoonist for Harper's Weekly. His cartoons in support of the Northern cause in the American Civil War were so effective that Abraham Lincoln called him “our best recruiting sergeant.” Many of his most effective cartoons were attacks on the New York City political machine of William Magear Tweed in the 1870s; one led to Tweed's identification and arrest in Spain. Nast originated the Republican Party's elephant, the Democratic Party's donkey, and one of the most popular images of Santa Claus. Left destitute by the failure of a brokerage house, he was appointed U.S. consul in Ecuador, where he died.

Nast, Thomas (1840–1902) cartoonist; born in Landau, Germany. When he was five years old, his family migrated to America, and at an early age he studied at the Academy of Design in New York City. He became a draftsman for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper at age 15, and in 1861 he was engaged by Harper's Weekly (1861–86), where he defined the genre of the political cartoon. His crusade against the corrupt New York political machine known as the Tweed Ring in 1871 resulted in the removal from office of virtually every member of Tammany Hall. He also created such cartoon icons as the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey, and he helped form the American notion of Santa Claus.