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The Elephant and Donkey
Harper’s Weekly featured Thomas Nast’s Democratic donkey for the first time in 1870. Nast had often used the symbol to represent ignorance. Nast featured an elephant for the first time in 1874 to represent the Republican vote. He rendered the animal, unsure of its own weight, plodding through planks representing its own party platform. Nast’s elephant and donkey appeared together in a cartoon for the first time in 1879.
Party Animals
Democratic and Republican Party leaders would never have chosen the animals that Thomas Nast did to popularize their policies and ideas. The parties typically adopted national symbols, such as the eagle and the flag. After 1840 the Democratic Party often represented itself as a rooster. Such symbols contended, unsuccessfully, with the popularity of donkeys and elephants into the 20th century. |