Santa Claus may be cartoonist’s, America’s greatest invention

January 22, 2007
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ANN ARBOR—What do Republican elephants, Democratic donkeys, and jolly old St. Nick all have in common? Their creator. Thomas Nast, the first great American political cartoonist, also invented the image of Santa Claus that is so famous today.

Though many images of Santa had been produced over the years, it took Nast, inspired by Clement Moore’s poem “The Night Before Christmas,” to emboss that long white beard, belly like a bowl full of jelly, and ruddy nose on the imagination of the whole world.

For years, cartoonists had portrayed Santa as a stern patriarch in religious robes, or as a Rumplestiltskin-like gnome. In 1861, Nast set the world straight by drawing the first “authoritative” image of the generous elf.

Nast’s first drawing of Santa Claus premiered in Harper’s Weekly Magazine and was “an instant success, enormously popular,” says Arlene Shy, head of reader services at the University of Michigan’s Clements Library. “Those first pictures came out during the Civil War, when people were so stressed with worry, and it was enormously powerful to see such a picture of good feeling in a time of trouble.”

At the time of this first Santa cartoon, Nast was employed as an illustrator for Harper’s and spent most of his time sketching scenes of the War, as well as allegorical cartoons designed to inspire patriotism among Northern citizens. His political art work “made the difference in Lincoln’s election over McClellen,” Shy says.

Nast was the first important American political cartoonist. In 1855, at age 15, he began his career as an illustrator for Leslie’s Weekly, where he drew his first cartoon satirizing government corruption. Over the next 45 years, his work commented on every public issue and political election in the United States, and often sparked action against corruption, such as “Boss” Tweed and the Tammany Hall scandal.

Along the way, he drew the popular and lasting images of Uncle Sam, John Bull, as well as the symbols of political parties. But his annual Santa Claus cartoons in the pages of Harper’s proved the most beloved. Just in time for Christmas 1890, Nast released his book “Christmas Drawings for the Human Race,” collecting all his drawings of Santa over the years, as well as some new ones.

Unlike his political drawings, Nast’s book claimed that it appealed “to the sympathy of no particular religious denomination or political party, but to the universal delight in the happiest of holidays.”

The same feelings of generosity and warmth Santa Claus evoked in a war-torn America more than 100 years ago, he inspires still today. “There is no other American-made symbol that is more universally recognized. His book is a perennial reprint,” says Shy.