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Thomas Nast
German-born Thomas Nast began his career as a graphic journalist during the Civil War. Over time, his objective artistic renderings became biting caricatures that made him one of the most influential editorialists of the Northern cause. Subsequently, and in addition to lampooning President Andrew Johnson, Nast aimed his satiric pen at the New-York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, the Ku Klux Klan, robber barons of the Gilded Age, and New York City's corrupt political machine, Tammany Hall, run by William "Boss" Tweed.
Nast is also remembered for the creation of the American political icons, the donkey and the elephant, for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively. Moreover, his renderings of Santa Claus, especially his 1881 version, are still viable images today.
Napoleon Sarony, c 1870 |