The Graphic Art of Thomas Nast: Politics and Propriety in Postbellum Publishing

For two decades after the Civil War, the political cartoons of Thomas Nast remained the most recognizable visual feature of Harper's Weekly, at the time one of the most widely circulated magazines in the United States. But despite his considerable fame, his dominance over the pictorial content of a successful periodical, and his unprecedented salary among American illustrators, Nast often felt beleaguered and disgruntled at Harper & Brothers. At the end of 1886, after nearly quitting on several earlier occasions, he declined to renew his contract with his publishers. Writers on Nast have commonly blamed his dissatisfaction and waning influence at the firm upon political feuding with the management, allegedly an increasingly conservative group reluctant to tolerate Nast's radical, reformist views. But this ubiquitous explanation greatly exaggerates any such political rift while ignoring a crucial shift in cultural attitudes towards heightened civility in mainstream journalism that did far more to fuel resentments between the artist and his editorial board. Nast's alienation from his longtime employer stemmed less from divergent political goals and more from differing approaches to the niceties of political debate, most notably his failure to adapt his distinctly violent cartoons to standards of decorum embraced by his publishing house during the 1870s. The mounting dissension between Nast and his colleagues should be contextualized within a larger cultural shift in American middle-class society toward a renewed interest in civility and gentility, a trend begun early in the century but interrupted by the sectional conflicts that escalated into the Civil War.

At midcentury magazines existed as a somewhat nebulous cultural formation, caught between two markedly different productions of the publishing world, the newspaper and the book. Newspapers operated within the unruly public sphere with its raw market forces and partisan politics, whereas books accessed more polite realms of history and literature. Though some journalists espoused high ideals, newspapers were often viewed either as prejudiced political organs or as salacious "retailers of filth."¹ Books on the other hand were widely linked with the edifying influence of cultured civility. As Richard Bushman notes, "No single item was more essential to a respectable household than a collection of books, and no activity more effectual for refinement and personal improvement than reading."² And books—not magazines—formed the bedrock of the Harper & Brothers business; indeed Harper's Weekly and Harper's Monthly were both launched originally as attempts to bolster book sales. These two journals, along with Atlantic Monthly, Putnam's Magazine, and a few others, constituted a new class of high-minded, independent publications whose shared aspirations resound in the Weekly's subtitle, "A Journal of Civilization."

Nast's embattled position at Harper's Weekly primarily stemmed not from his political opinions but rather from the uncivil manner in which he presented them. As the Weekly sought to emphasize aesthetics, urbanity, and gentility, Nast's violent style of cartooning reminded people more of the old newspaper world, rife with character assassins and "journalistic knife-throwers."³ Especially after the cultural milestone of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, Nast's brutal style of caricature appeared out of step with an increasingly popular new school of illustrators at Harper & Brothers who, in tandem with leading editorial voices, helped revive the sentiment of civility and sought a return to genteel discourse after the necessarily charged rhetoric and imagery of the Civil War years.

Nast & Curtis: The Firebrand and the Conciliator

During the 1850s Fletcher Harper, youngest of the four Harper brothers, founded two magazines, Harper's Monthly and Harper's Weekly. Both magazines quickly developed large readerships throughout the country. Though never an official organ of the Republican Party, the Weekly evolved into a highly influential advocate of Republican principles during the war. By the late 1860s the periodical had established a consistent political viewpoint anchored by the contributions of two dominant personalities, Thomas Nast, who provided political cartoons and other illustrations, and George William Curtis, who supplied political editorials and other commentaries. Though both men also occasionally contributed to other periodicals, their public personas remained indelibly linked with the Weekly.

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