Thomas Nast was one of America's most significant illustrators. He was staggeringly prolific and popular from the Civil War to the turn of the century, and he wielded enormous influence in those years. "Thomas Nast," wrote Richard Calhoun in Contemporary Graphic Artists, "towers over the history of American cartooning as no other artist does." Felicia A. Piscitelli, writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, likewise expressed high regard for Nast's achievements. "Regarded as America's greatest caricaturist," wrote Piscitelli, "Nast's more than three thousand cartoons and illustrations brought freshness and originality as well as political relevance to the American art scene." Nast is credited with creating the popular conceptions of Santa Claus and Uncle Sam, and with inventing the donkey and elephant as the symbols for the Democrat and Republican Parties. He is also credited with helping to bring down the corrupt New York politician Boss Tweed.

Nast was...