AUTHORS AND WRITERS ON ART.
Thomas Nast.
Mr. Nast, who has for so long been identified with Morristown, may be designated both as artist and bookmaker. In the true sense of the term, author, he may then be fairly presented, as probably no living man has wielded a greater influence through his power of expression. Many readers of this sketch will remember the consternation that prevailed upon the revelation of the Tweed Ring scandals and at the question of Tweed himself as he defied the City of New York,—"What are you going to do about it?" They will remember how Mr. Nast with wonderful courage and grasp of the situation, came to the front and at great personal risk to himself and family, threw with steady aim, the stone which killed that Goliath of Gath and put to rout the Philistines. They will remember Tweed's exclamation: "I can stand anything but those pictures!" Mr. Nast, then, is a hero in our history, and the fact cannot be forgotten.
When the Washington Headquarters was first purchased from the Ford family, the original owners, by a few gentlemen who organized the Washington Association to preserve the historic building and grounds, for a national possession, many will remember how Mr. Nast entered into the spirit of the Centennial Celebration there in 1875, when so many of the prominent men and women of Morristown took part, wearing the dress of the Revolution and working hard to accomplish the end of fitting up the building by the proceeds of the entertainment. All were astonished by the result in sales of tickets, collation, and little hatchets, of between eleven and twelve hundred dollars in one single afternoon and evening; so much, that the amount was divided between the Headquarters and the "Library" of Morristown, then in its beginning. Mr. Nast had much to do with this success. He worked early and late at the decorations and filled one of the largest rooms with his immense and humorous cartoons of scenes in the Revolution and the stories of George Washington.
The book published by Mr. Nast is now in our library, "Miss Columbia's Public School", and is a clever satire on the Northern and Southern boy and the general condition of Miss Columbia's pupils in the time of our Civil War. It was issued in 1871.
Another charming publication of Mr. Nast was brought out by the Harper Brothers for Christmas, 1889, under the title of "Thomas Nast's Christmas Drawings for the Human Race". Of this says one of the critics of the time: "His Santa Claus, jolly vagabond that he is, seems to radiate a warmth more genial than tropic airs, and a gayety that overbears the sadness of experience. 'What a mug' does he show us on the title page; so kindly, so roguish, so venerable, so comical, so shrewd, so pugnaciously cheerful! How seriously he takes himself, and yet what a wink in those twinkling eyes, as who should say, 'Confidentially, of course, we admit the fraud, but mum's the word where the children are concerned!'"
Thomas Nast came from Bavaria, with his father, at the age of six, and at fourteen was a pupil for a few months of Theodore Kaufmann, soon after beginning his career, as draughtsman on an illustrated paper. In 1860, as special artist for a New York weekly paper, he went abroad and while there, followed Garibaldi in Italy, making sketches for London, Paris and New York illustrated papers. His war sketches appeared in Harper's Weekly on his return in 1862. The political condition of national affairs gave him opportunity for manifesting his peculiar gift for representing in condensed form, a powerful thought. His first political caricature established his reputation. It was an allegorical design which gave a powerful blow to the peace party.
Besides the Harper's Weekly sketches, Mr. Nast has contributed to other papers and has illustrated books in addition to those mentioned, in particular Petroleum V. Nasby's book. For many years, he brought out "Nast's Illustrated Almanac".