What was the result of Thomas Nast cartoons

Thomas Nast, “The Union As It Was—Worse Than Slavery,” 1874, wood engraving, illustration in Harper’s Weekly (October 24, 1874, Library of Congress) A conversation between Dr. Kimberly Kutz Elliott and Dr. Beth Harris Warning: this video includes violent and racist imagery

Congratulations - you have completed Nast, The Union As It Was. You scored %%SCORE%% out of %%TOTAL%%. Your performance has been rated as %%RATING%%

Your answers are highlighted below.

There are 4 questions to complete.

Political cartoons are an essential source for the visual language of a particular historical moment. Because of their contextual specificity, they can be difficult to understand by viewers who didn’t live during that time or in that cultural context, but through comparison with other sources, political cartoons can yield rich understanding of beliefs, perspectives, and issues of the day.
Thomas Nast’s 1874 cartoon was published in Harper’s Weekly magazine, a northern publication that was politically aligned with Abraham Lincoln and the northern Republican party during the Civil War and throughout Reconstruction. The image promotes support for the Republican party by condemning Democrats. Details in the cartoon link Democrats with the conspiracies among white-led organizations to use violence and intimidation to disenfranchise and suppress formerly enslaved African Americans during Reconstruction.
Visual precedents for this image reinforced the power of its symbolism; notably, the motif of figures shaking hands above a shield was widely understood at the time to reflect national unity.

Why Reconstruction Matters by Eric Foner, The New York Times, March 28, 2015

Life After Slavery for African Americans (Khan Academy)

Black Officeholders in the South (specifically during Reconstruction), Facing History and Ourselves

Presidents, Politics, and the Pen: The Influential Art of Thomas Nast (Virtual Exhibition created by the Norman Rockwell Museum in 2016, hosted by Google Arts and Culture)

Make Good the Promises: Reclaiming Reconstruction and Its Legacies, edited by Kinshasha Holman Conwill and Paul Gardullo, 2021 (exhibition catalog from Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture)

150 Years and Counting: The Struggle to Secure the Promise of the 15th Amendment (Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture)

Capitan Hannibal C. Carter: Businessman, Civil War Officer, Reconstruction Politician, Freedom Fighter (blog post by Museum Specialist of Oral History, Kelly P Navies, at Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

More to think about

Why do you think political cartoons like Nast’s are effective? What images do you see today that critique politics most effectively and why?

Research project ideas

Explore a selection of political cartoons from the period of Reconstruction or from a range of time periods you have studied (be sure you feel comfortable with the historical context so you understand the issues being addressed in each cartoon). Focus your exploration on defining the way political cartoons serve as a particular kind of visual source. The following prompts may help shape your research.
- Consider how political cartoonists use particular visual strategies to offer pointed opinions on specific topics and for specific audiences.
- Try to answer the question, “What can political cartoons tell us about the time they were created that we cannot learn from other types of sources?”
- Consider how viewers judge or identify the bias of a political cartoon, by answering the question “what makes a cartoon successful?” Note: there is research that suggests that satire can sometimes backfire, being read as positive by the very people it strives to critique. For this line of inquiry, see if you can find any present examples of such unintended consequences in political cartoons—and consider what lessons they might provide for political cartoonists today.
- In light of more recent events (e.g. Charlie Hebdo cartoons), we are familiar with debates about the line between satire and slander. How have political cartoonists navigated this line?

Seeing America is developed and distributed by Smarthistory together with a consortium of museums, including:

Explore the diverse history of the United States through its art. Seeing America is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.

Use this primary source imagery to analyze major events in history.

From an early age, William “Boss” Tweed discovered he had a knack for politics. His political career began in 1850, when he ran as an alderman from the Seventh Ward of New York City. He served a frustrating term in Congress during the divisive sectional tensions of the 1850s and then happily returned to local politics, where he believed the action was. He quickly became one of the leading, and most corrupt, politicians in New York City. Tweed and his cronies in Tammany Hall—the organization that controlled the Democratic Party and most of its votes—directed local services, controlled elections, and received millions of dollars in kickbacks, bribes, and other forms of brazen corruption.

Tweed’s greed drew the attention of Thomas Nast, a cartoonist for the periodical Harper’s Weekly. Nast’s cartoons drew attention to Tweed and his many illegal activities. Tweed feared Nast’s cartoons to a much greater extent than newspaper articles, because many of his constituents were illiterate, and he even offered Nast a bribe to stop these public criticisms. Tweed was right to fear this criticism because Nast’s cartoons helped lead to his downfall and arrest in 1876. Tweed died in jail in 1878, and Nast continued to draw for Harper’s Weekly until 1886.

Who was the artist of these political cartoons?
What was the artist’s goal in creating these cartoons?
Why did Boss Tweed fear these cartoons?

Figure 1: The caption of the cartoon reads: “Boss Tweed: ‘As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it? Say?’”

Figure 2: The cartoon caption reads: “The ‘Brains’ that achieved the Tammany victory at the Rochester Democratic Convention.”

Figure 3: The cartoon caption reads: “The Tammany Tiger Loose—‘What are you going to do about it?’” Before being knocked to the ground by the tiger, the woman had been wearing a crown labeled “republic” and carrying a sword labeled “power”; she lies on top of a paper labeled “law” and a battered flag.

(Figure 1) (Figure 2) (Figure 3) How do these cartoons demonstrate that Boss Tweed had an unfair grip over politics in New York? Use specific examples from the cartoons to support your answer.
(Figure 1) (Figure 2) (Figure 3) Which cartoon do you feel is most effective? Explain.

According to Thomas Nast’s portrayal, what threat did Boss Tweed represent to constitutional principles and a healthy civil society?
What is the role of a free press in questioning governmental actions in a constitutional republic?
Do you think political cartoons play the same role in questioning government today as they did in Thomas Nast’s time? Explain.

1: In Counting there is Courage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Tweed#/media/File:Boss_Tweed,_Nast.jpg

2: “The Brains”: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boss_Tweed,_Thomas_Nast.jpg

3: “Tammany Tiger Loose”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nast#/media/File:Nast-Tammany.jpg