September 22, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/22/2011
Newspaper, Harper's Weekly, New York, 16pp., complete issue, disbound, November 17, 1874, VG. from an interior page, a Thomas Nast cartoon using the Elephant as the symbol for the Republican Party. The featured cartoon is one of Thomas Nast's most important because it marks the first notable appearance of the Republican Elephant, which the cartoonist would develop over the next few years into the universally recognized symbol for the Republican Party. An elephant had been associated twice before with the Republican Party, once in President Abraham Lincoln's 1864 campaign sheet, Father Abraham , (not The Rail-Splitter of 1860, as often cited), and once in Harper's Weekly to depict the Liberal Republicans of 1872. However, in neither case did the caricature have a lasting impact on other political cartoonists or the public as a symbol for the Republican Party.
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