Thomas Nast Research Paper

Thomas Nast:
The Mind Behind the Modern Media
Today, an American’s political views develop from a number of sources. Magazines, movies, television, newspapers, and the Internet all shape public policy and the outcome of an election. However, most of those sources are fairly modern; newspapers and, magazines were the sole source for the American people up till about seventy years ago. Newspapers needed a way to present political information that was interesting and understandable to all; cartoons were the best way. Thomas Nast can easily be noted as the father of early political cartoons, because of his many contributions to the public policy of his time and his influence on the political media today.
Thomas Nast was born September
His first work for Harper’s was his first Santa Claus drawing, Santa Claus in Camp, 
published January 3, 1863. A year later, Thomas Nast published Compromise with the South, in which Nast powerfully combats the defeatism that pervaded the Union during the summer of 1864, when Lincoln himself expected to be defeated for reelection (Encyclopedia Britannica). A tattered American flag hangs upside down in a signal of distress because northern cities are devastated. Columbia, symbolizing the nation, weeps as a disabled Union veteran’s handshake with a Confederate officer dissolves into a humble surrender (Halloran). The triumphant Confederate’s foot treads on a Union soldier’s grave and breaks the northern sword and northern power. In the South, its flag brilliant in victory despite the crimes listed in its folds. An African American Union veteran and his family are reshackled in slavery (Halloran). The title of the work refers to the recent Democratic presidential nominating convention, which had declared a platform pronouncing the war a failure, criticized emancipation, and advocating a cease-fire and negotiations with the Confederacy (Halloran). This cartoon was widely reproduced by the Republican Party for use in President Lincoln’s campaign, which Lincoln did go on to win (Encyclopedia Britannica). In the election of 1868, Nast began his cartoon campaign against William M. Tweed, boss of New York City’s Tammany Hall, and his associates with A Respectable Screen Covers a Multitude of Thieves in the October 10th issue of Harper’s Weekly (Encyclopedia Britannica). Pressure was put on Harper Brothers, the company that produced the magazine, and when it refused to fire Nast, the company lost the contract to provide New York schools with books. Nast himself was offered a bribe of $500,000 to end his