Last week I was working on accessioning issues of Harper's Weekly. Each cover illustration was more captivating than the next and I found myself wishing that I had more context for some of them. Their political commentary wasn't always clear to me, but after some research, I found some of the information I was looking for and it made the illustrations much more understandable.
The covers that I enjoyed looking at the most were the covers illustrated by Thomas Nast. I knew of his work in creating the iconic Uncle Sam figure, but I did not realize he is the creator of the Democrat Donkey and the Republican Elephant as well. My favorite issues were the ones with Nast's drawings of Boss Tweed. Nast disliked Tweed and the corruption that followed him. In fact, it was one of Nast's illustrations of Tweed that helped catch him when he escaped to Spain to avoid prison time.
Although the Tweed issues were the ones that stood out most to me, the illustration that struck me the most was one that was published during the Reconstruction period. (Nast, Thomas. "The 'Civil Rights Scare' is Nearly Over. Harper's Weekly, April 22, 1875.) Shortly after the Civil War, the race issue was still an extremely difficult and touchy subject. The image was of black foxes chasing white geese and the caption read something about how the "Civil Rights scare" is nearly over.
As a person, I found the image disturbing. As a historian, I thought it was interesting seeing how race was portrayed during the time from primary source material, rather than information gathered through a textbook.
No comments:
Post a Comment