Thomas Nast on Reconstruction | BRIdge from the Past: Art Across U.S. History

0:04 Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Bridge from the Past. Art across US history. I’m Mary Patterson, and in this series, we help you explore primary source visuals that tell the stories of America’s past. Today, I’m joined once again by my colleague Gary. Gary, thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me, Mary. Always a pleasure.

0:24 Gary and I are going to be looking at two cartoons that come from the time period of Reconstruction. If you’ve been traveling along with us on The Wild Ride, that is the timeline of American history, you know that Reconstruction comes directly after the Civil War. What was the goal of Reconstruction? Was it merely a time to fold the south back into the Union?

0:46 Was it a chance to ensure that founding principles of liberty and equality are faithfully applied to all men? In that sense, a second founding? Let’s see what our artist Thomas Nast has to say about this in his political cartoons. Gary, are you ready? I am very excited. All right, let’s jump right in. If you’ve watched A Bridge From the Past

1:06 before, you know that we typically start by looking at the image itself. But today, since both of our cartoons come from the same artist, Thomas Nast, and they both appeared in the same magazine, Harper’s Weekly, I thought we could start by giving just bare bones context about Reconstruction. So, the fighting of the Civil War ends in April 1865, and President Lincoln has also assassinated in April of 1865.

1:31 So his Vice President, Andrew Johnson, becomes the President. And the first few years of reconstruction are referred to as presidential reconstruction. Andrew Johnson is kind of an interesting character. He was a Southerner. So while he fervently believed in maintaining the Union, he also had a very Southern mindset when it came to white supremacy.

1:53 So just a few years or in 1866, there was a Congressional election, and Republicans sweep the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the next years of Reconstruction are referred to as radical or Congressional Reconstruction. So a lot of these men thought that Johnson was too lenient, that he didn’t go far enough, and they wanted to make sure that there were more changes

2:16 brought to the south as they rebuilt and reunified the country. So they divide the south into military districts. So now there’s an actual Federal presence in the south to enforce legislation, to have a presence and make sure that everybody’s sort of following the rules, as it were. And maybe the biggest changes or the constitutional changes that are coming out of Reconstruction are three amendments

2:40 that are collectively known as the Reconstruction Amendments. So the 13th Amendment abolishes slavery. A few years later, you have the 14th Amendment, which is a super important amendment that guarantees birthright citizenship or men that were formerly enslaved are now considered citizens with equal protection under the law.

3:00 And just a few years after that, the 15th Amendment guarantees universal male suffrage. So in a pretty short period of time, you have some sweeping changes, including three constitutional changes happening in Reconstruction. With that said, I want us to look at our primary sources.

3:23 So here’s our first image uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving dinner. So again, the artist is Thomas Nast. And this appeared in Harper’s Weekly. So Harper’s Weekly was a popular magazine. It was based in New York City. It had nonfiction as well as some news, and it also had some fiction and essays and illustrations. And Thomas Nast was by far their most popular and well known cartoonist.

3:48 So here you have 1869 Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving dinner. There’s a lot going on here. So we know our rules when we look at a historic image. Just take a moment and observe and then we’ll try to think of some questions for analysis. So, Gary, what immediately jumps out at you when you look at this image?

4:10 First of all, I do love political cartoons for that very reason, Mary, because it’s nice to see what’s right there and then kind of zoom out to bigger picture. But I also think it was great to have that context because I think because you just mentioned the timing, the first thing I zoom in on this is going to sound strange is that to the left it

4:31 has the date from Harper’s Weekly and being 1869. And so I’m thinking of this in terms of if this is November, this is one amendment. The 14th Amendment has just happened, more or less, and the 15th Amendment is on the horizon. So it’s probably on people’s minds. And this idea of Thanksgiving dinner, I think, is relatively new.

4:54 So you ask me what I see. I guess I have it in the mindset that it is what seems like the premise of what a Thanksgiving dinner looks like people sitting around a table, lots of different people. But I think the fact that it is Thanksgiving itself is significant. Well, Thanksgiving was still relatively new in 1869,

5:18 so it was in 1863 that Abraham Lincoln declared a national holiday of thanks. So this is kind of a newer holiday. But I think that’s what I noticed is just sort of this big family sitting around a table eating, which is what makes Thanksgiving so great. But like you said, there’s all different family members, so to speak, at the table.

5:41 You can see you have an African American family, you have a Chinese family. You have all different people coming from different places. And this guy right here, this is Uncle Sam, I believe, carving the turkey. And right here we have Columbia. So Columbia is this sort of personification of America.

6:05 And we’ve seen her in several other images that we’ve looked at at Bridge from the past. So it’s almost like there’s this American family. We’ve got Uncle Sam as this sort of father figure, and we have Columbia as the mother figure and everybody in. Between, and everyone in between. There are a lot of children here. There seem to be a lot of family units

6:26 from the perspective of that time, of what family unit means. But I like the idea of just general family. Right. If you’re invited to this table, then it definitely seems to be very welcoming. People seem pleased, interacting. It seems to be very happy. And then the phrases at the bottom, on the bottom left, come one, come all, and the bottom right, free and equal.

6:49 I mean, there’s a lot of positive emotion, I think, at this particular event, which, again, in a political cartoon. This isn’t a photograph, I think seems to be what Thomas Nast is conveying. Right. And you also have this welcome over this image right here behind Uncle Sam. And this actually says Castle Island,

7:09 which was sort of the main entry point for immigrants before Ellis Island. So there’s this all these immigrants coming to America’s table, and it’s a welcoming image. They’re taking part in this feast of thanks. So it’s definitely positive. We’re in sort of the beginnings of Congressional or radical Reconstruction.

7:31 You can see on the centerpiece here, it says universal suffrage. So, like you mentioned before, Gary, the 13th and 14th Amendments have officially been ratified. The 15th Amendment, which is going to grant universal male suffrage, has gone through Congress, but it hasn’t been ratified yet. So people know about this amendment, but it’s not officially on the books yet.

7:54 But this is this all of these things point to, you know, a very happy and hopeful time, that Reconstruction is really about bringing people together where everyone is truly free and equal. Right? Yeah. There’s mention of the 15th Amendment in the very top center there.

8:16 I think it’s significant. The portraits that selected, of all the portraits that could be there are Lincoln, Washington, and Grant. What do you think the significance of that is? Well, before I said, was Reconstruction a sort of second founding? So the founding, of course, you think of George Washington, our first president,

8:37 and the Declaration of Independence, and just this idea from the beginning that all men are created equal, that wasn’t necessarily the case. But now if we’re saying, well, there’s no slavery and every man is a citizen and every man has a voice, we’re working toward those founding principles. And, of course, Lincoln oversaw the war, and Grant was

9:01 the leader of the Union army that accepts the surrender of the Confederate. So I think he’s pointing to that. We’re sort of making good on these promises that for our government to work, we have self-government over here on the centerpiece, we need the voices of all of our citizens. My interpretation.

9:24 It’s what is there. Yeah exactly. It’s evidence that’s presented there. That’s great. Now, this what’s interesting now, again, our second image, also by Thomas Mast and also appearing in Harper’s Weekly just five years later, is the Union as it was and this is a completely different tone,

9:45 very different message about events going on in the country. We’re still in reconstruction. It’s five years have passed, but you can see that this image perhaps isn’t as hopeful. So what what do you immediately observe about this one, Gary? I mean, again, the the context, knowing that it’s the same author,

10:07 the creator of this, there’s something about that that makes me immediately contemplate how powerfully he’s expressing his thoughts on what’s going on in the country in comparison between the two. If I were to look here directly, I think there’s first of all, it’s terrifying. The figure of the KKK member there even that’s a terrifying look.

10:33 The member of the White League is not facing us, but doesn’t have a mask. But of course, I think the eye is drawn to we just saw family units. Right. We have another seeming family unit in the center here that is just horrible. So I think immediately that’s where the eye kind of goes in terms of what is causing

10:55 this clear, emotional, raw, just terror that’s going on. Right. And I think that if you look closely in the shield, you can see some of the I mean, apart from the obvious violence and intimidation that’s being alluded to here with the hooded KKK member with his he’s got these weapons

11:16 here, and the man from the White League has a gun with the bayonet here. You see a man being lynched in this shield. You see a schoolhouse being burned. So there’s obviously this terrible violence being inflicted in the south, and this phrasing is worse than slavery.

11:36 So we have this war fought where all these lives were lost and slavery has officially ended. And we’ve expanded citizenship, we’ve expanded suffrage. But what’s going on? Is that really what’s happening? So there’s this disconnect between what’s on the books, the principles and what the Constitution

11:57 and these amendments say, versus what’s happening in the south. And I think the power of an image, the power that Thomas Nast has with this image in showing people and again, this is a magazine. It’s based in New York City, so it’s going to be read by people who perhaps aren’t living in the south or maybe some people who are living

12:19 in the south will see this and be like, what’s going on? What’s happening? So I think it’s interesting to think of the artist as sort of calling attention to a real problem and then sort of the implicit, what are we going to do about this? Yeah, if we’re comparing the last image was very forward looking and hopeful, where this one seems more present in terms

12:43 of a commentary of what’s going on at the time. But I also think there’s something about we’re now getting on to approaching almost a decade since the Civil War happened. And so it’s almost a way of that history is maybe not living up to what the hope was or that history is being forgotten or even history is being rewritten,

13:04 I want to call attention to the very center of the phrase the lost cause. And maybe if that’s something that comes up in classes and maybe get into a little bit of what that means for someone in 1874. Right, well, I think, again, what’s really interesting is that this is less than ten years after the Civil War has ended, and you already are seeing this mentioning of the idea of the lost cause.

13:28 And this is something that will come back and comes back in American history, which is the idea of writing the story of the Civil War or saying the Confederate side was very heroic and just it was a lost cause. It was sort of this chivalrous thing and that slavery wasn’t that bad and it’s just false.

13:49 Of course, slavery was horrific and it was completely at odds with the Declaration of Independence. But it’s already here. We’re already seeing it show up in the historical record and it persists. So I think that is worth noting that we’ve already seen it in 1874 and it’s not something that’s going to go away quickly when we talk about the American story.

14:17 Again, there’s a lot we have just scratched the tip of the iceberg with these images. So I want to, before we say goodbye to you, come back to these amendments. All right, so even though events in the south, there’s this terrible backlash and violence and intimidation and the beginnings of Jim Crow happening during Reconstruction.

14:39 But these amendments, they’re in the Constitution, they’re on the books. And Charles Sumner, who is one of the Republican leaders of Congress during Reconstruction, called them sleeping giants. So even though the actions that were happening in itself and this idea of Jim Crow and white supremacy is completely at odds with these ideals of liberty and equality and at odds in violation of these amendments,

15:03 they’re going to come back and people are going to make sure and continue the work to make sure that these principles are faithfully applied. So the work is sort of unfinished, even though we’re hitting this really quite a dark spot in American history when you look at race relations in the south.

15:24 So, Gary, there was a lot to go through there. Thank you so much for being with us today. We hope that you guys learned something, that you thought of some good questions, that you want to go back into this image and explore more. That’s what we want you to do. If you like this video, be sure to subscribe to our channel. This is our last video for 2020, but we’ll be back in the new year.

15:46 We put out videos every Tuesday and Thursday that can help you with all things US. History. And you can also find us in all the places facebook, Twitter, Instagram for updates on student contests and programs and ways to get involved. We’d love to hear from you, Gary. Thank you again. And take care, everybody. We’ll see you next year.