Episode Details

Thomas Nast was born in Bavaria in 1840, arrived in New York at age six, and was drawing in reverse onto woodblocks for illustrated newspapers by 15. After covering a boxing match in England and Garibaldi's campaign in Italy, he joined Harper's Weekly as a staff illustrator in 1862. His Civil War drawings, from the 1862 Christmas Eve wreaths to the 1864 cartoon Compromise with the South, reached millions through electrotyped plates, and Lincoln called him his best recruiting sergeant.

In 1870 and 1871 Nast turned on William M. Tweed and the Tammany Hall ring, switching from ink wash to bold crosshatching so his images survived mass printing. Tweed's camp offered him up to $500,000 to leave for Europe, and he refused. The episode also covers Nast's anti-Irish and anti-Catholic cartoons, his split with editor George William Curtis after Fletcher Harper's death, the loss of his fortune to Ferdinand Ward in 1884, and his death from yellow fever in Ecuador in 1902.

• Tweed was captured in Spain after a local official recognized his face from a Nast cartoon.
• Grant credited his 1868 victory to the sword of Sheridan and the pencil of Thomas Nast.
• The Tweed courthouse, budgeted at around $250,000, ended up costing taxpayers about $13 million.
• Nast invented the Republican elephant and the Tammany tiger and drew the first modern Santa Claus.
• In 2018 the Overseas Press Club removed Nast's name from its award for editorial cartooning.