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  • Crusading Cartoonist: Thomas Nast
  • Brooke Speer Orr (bio)
Fiona Deans Halloran. Thomas Nast: The Father of Modern Political Cartoons. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. 384pp. Illustrations, bibliography, notes, and index. $35.00.

Fiona Deans Halloran has written a fascinating, accessible, and well-researched book tracing the life and legacy of Thomas Nast, the historic figure most remembered, as the book’s title suggests, as the “father” of modern political cartooning. Nast’s pioneering political cartooning work is, of course, notable, if not extraordinary; but Halloran’s comprehensive investigation of the famous cartoonist highlights his influence on and indirect participation in nineteenth-century American politics, a story largely ignored until the publication of Thomas Nast: The Father of Modern Political Cartoons. Halloran explores not only Nast’s life as a successful political illustrator, but also other important topics related to his career, such as party politics, war, immigration, nativism, religious tensions, big business and government corruption, race relations, the advent of visual journalism, and the coming of modern America during the Gilded Age. In Halloran’s estimation, Nast might be more accurately remembered as a political artist and commentator rather than as a cartoonist, since he both reflected and shaped public political opinion. Nast, for example, simultaneously urged on and tapped into the Union’s patriotic mood following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, masterfully guiding and reflecting public sentiment in this and other wartime political cartoons.

Halloran thoughtfully contextualizes Nast’s life from childhood and early schooling, through courtship and marriage, to his legendary political cartooning career at Harper’s Weekly. Also thoroughly covered are his involvement in Republican politics, late-in-life financial stress, and his enduring postmortem influence. Halloran reflects that Nast would be pleased to learn that his Santa Claus drawings remain popular today, while he would likewise be thrilled to learn that contemporary history texts note his significant role in helping to destroy the Boss Tweed Ring. According to Halloran, Nast would probably laugh to discover that today he is rather incorrectly credited for creating the Democratic donkey symbol; however, he might have claimed the Republican elephant symbol as his own, even though “it was a minor element in his [End Page 291] richly symbolic cartoon world” (p. 289). Halloran’s biographical study of Nast brings to light his compelling story and varied experiences within an analytical framework and appropriate historical context without reducing the biography to nostalgic commentary, adulation, or quips about Nast’s many famous and often humorous cartoons. She clearly admires Nast and chastises previous historians for their sometimes superficial or needlessly unflattering portraits of him, but she still critically highlights his flaws, such as his occasional stubbornness and disagreements with colleagues. When historical evidence was unavailable to Halloran (like Nast’s personal thoughts not committed to paper), she hypothesizes about his motivations based on the research available, and this proves to be a useful strategy that keeps her narrative logically flowing. Her book incorporates numerous noteworthy, illustrative, and attractively presented political cartoons created by Nast, enabling her to tell Nast’s story through a delightful visual and textual journey. Her work delves deeply into Nast’s varied experiences, including those beyond political cartooning, providing the reader with a larger narrative about American political strife during and after the Civil War.

Nast’s artistic style, Halloran argues, has sometimes been interpreted as reflecting a lack of sophistication because it involved a seemingly simplistic black-and-white or good-versus-evil approach to complex political issues. Nast’s style was one of direct, graphic evocations of battles between right and wrong because his goal in political cartooning was never about making money, but instead reflected his desire to express political viewpoints and sway public opinion. According to Halloran, Nast maintained consistent themes in his cartoons, with ubiquitous goodness symbolized through images of integrity and sacrifice and with evil represented through violence, hypocrisy, and greed. Nast’s style of parallelism involved putting forth two contrasting images—one invoking goodness and the other evil—with the conspicuous intent of swaying his audiences to his point of view. He inserted sentimental and pious images of women and children into his political cartoons to serve, Halloran...

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