Peace Insecure/Secure

1873

Lecture tour across the United States

Tours the United States as a lecturer and a sketch artist; his activity on the lecture circuit makes him wealthy.

1873–1902 · Woonplaats

Thomas Nast Home

December 1875

Fugitive Tweed identified from a Nast cartoon

When Tweed tries to escape justice by fleeing to Cuba and from there to Spain, officials in Vigo identify the fugitive using one of Nast’s cartoons.

1876

Campaign for Rutherford B. Hayes

Opposing inflation of the currency (notably with his famous rag-baby cartoons), Nast plays an important part in securing Rutherford B. Hayes’s ultimate victory in 1876; Hayes later calls him the most powerful single-handed aid he had. Nast soon becomes disillusioned with the president, opposing his lenient policy towards the South in removing federal troops.

1877–1884

His standing at Harper’s Weekly fades

After the death of publisher Fletcher Harper, who had always backed Nast in his disputes, Nast’s relationship with editor George William Curtis, who had differed with him since the late 1860s on the role of cartoons, changes; his cartoons appear less often and the magazine begins publishing the milder cartoons of William Allen Rogers. Puck also arrives in 1877; before it, Nast had no meaningful competition.

1877–1884

Drawings defending Chinese immigrants

Dozens of his drawings in favor of Chinese immigration date from this period, often implicating the Irish as instigators. He blames Senator James G. Blaine for supporting the Chinese Exclusion Act and depicts him with the same zeal used against Tweed; Nast is one of the few editorial artists who took up the cause of the Chinese in America.