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Thomas Nast's Republican Elephant, Harper's Weekly, 1874
Thomas Nast's Republican Elephant, Harper's Weekly, 1874

Professor of Religious Studies Jay Williams '54 will present an Alumni College during Reunions '09 on Thomas Nast (1840-1902). According to Williams, Nast was undoubtedly one of America's greatest cartoonists and icon makers. The Republican Elephant, Uncle Sam, and even Santa Claus are, to a large extent, his inventions.
He not only commented on the American political scene but taught Americans how to view it. 

When he arrived in New York from Germany as a child in 1846, the United States was still very much an agricultural country, steeped in Protestantism, and quite out the mainstream of international politics. When he died in 1902, the United States had become much more diverse ethnically and religiously a major manufacturing power, and an important player on the world's stage. Nast not only chronicles those changes but sets out a pattern of life for the "new" America. 

His vision is multicultural, capitalistic, and democratic. Most important, Nast knows that for capitalism and democracy to succeed they must be characterized by honesty and integrity. This lecture will take a look at some of Nast's core values that form the basis of his political crusades and how he, through his cartoons, shaped the America that we have come to know. 

Professor Jay G. Williams '54, Walcott-Bartlett Professor of Religious Studies, owns a large collection of Nast cartoons that he has exhibited not only on the Hill but at such places as the Fenimore House in Cooperstown, the Museum of Bennington, Vermont , and Haverfored College. He has recently completed the manuscript for a book on the work of Thomas Nast.

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