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Thomas Nast
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Thomas Nast was one of these illustrators. Nast began his career as a war correspondent covering the War in Italy in 1860 for The Illustrated London News and New York Illustrated News. He followed Giuseppe Garibaldi's campaign to liberate and unify Sicily and the southern Italian states, depicting the events in pencil, crayon, ink, and paint. The artist compiled a sketchbook of the campaign's events, now in Macculloch Hall's collection.
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Thomas Nast was a young German artist who created a Christmas illustration which has shaped Americans’ view of Santa Claus to this day. In December 1862, Nast produced his first Santa drawings for "Harper's" magazine as a combination of holiday cheer and somber reality. The figure Nast drew was radically different from the way Santa had been thought of by the public up until this point. At the time, Santa was often portrayed as short and lean, with a sharp clean-shaven face, looking more like an evil demon than a benevolent gift-giver.
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Thomas Nast brought Christmas to a large audience through his engravings. The result of the impact that these drawings had on American's is astronomical. In Europe, Christmas was observed for centuries on December 6. By the late 1800's when Nast's Santa Claus gained popularity, Christmas Day was legally established as December 25 in all states and territories in the United States. In addition, an extended school vacation during this period became a custom. (A brief pause while all students write a thank you note to the Nast estate.)
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Thomas Nast (1840-1902) immigrated to America from Landau, Germany when he was five years old. With only limited education and even less art training he joined the art staff of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated as a teenager. After traveling in Italy reporting on the campaign of Garibaldi, he joined Harper’s Weekly as a war correspondent during the Civil War. While working for Harper’s until 1887, Nast created hundreds of cartoons including those of national symbols forever linked to his genius---the Democratic Donkey, Republican Elephant, Uncle Sam, Columbia, Tammany Tiger and Santa Claus.
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Thomas Nast was born in Germany in 1840 where his father was a muscian in the Ninth Regiment Bavarian Band. When he was still a child his family immigrated to New York City. His father noticed that young Thomas had a flair for drawing and for a short while he was sent to study at an art school. At the age of 15, when family funds for the school were exhausted, Nast precented himself to Frank Leslie, owner of the journal Leslie's Illustrated, hoping for a job. Leslie, not wanting to be bothered with the boy, gave him a difficult assignment: sketching the crowd at the Christopher Street Ferry. Nast... turned in a drawing that was so fine that Leslie hired him on the spot.
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The American caricaturist Thomas Nast was born on the 27th of September 1840, in the military barracks of Landau, Germany, the son of a musician in the Ninth regiment Bavarian band. His mother took him to New York in 1846. He studied art there for about a year with Theodore Kaufmann and then at the school of the National Academy of Design. At the age of fifteen he became a draughtsman for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper; three years afterwards for Harper's Weekly. In 1860 he went to England for the New York Illustrated News to depict the prize-fight between Heenan and Sayers, and then joined Garibaldi in Italy as artist for The Illustrated London News. His first serious work in caricature was the cartoon "Peace" in 1862, directed against those in the North who opposed the prosecution of the Civil War.
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Thomas Nast