Browse Items (12 total)

“From the Plantation to the Senate” (1884) highlighted the transformation of former slaves to citizens during the Civil War and Reconstruction. (The portraits include Benjamin Sterling Turner, Rev. Richard Allen, Hiram R. Revels, Frederick Douglass,…

Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1865 to aid former slaves during Reconstruction. Intended as a temporary measure, its purpose was to reunite African American families separated during the war, arrange for their education, and assist…

Thomas Nast is known for his substitution of the image of Santa Claus as an elf with that of a jolly, rotund man. He is better known, however, for his career as a political satirist and his nickname, "Father of the American Cartoon." In his…

Alfred R. Waud became widely known among Civil War sketch artists because of his ability to convey the drama and horror of the conflict through his art. After the war, Waud continued to draw for the northern Republican periodical, Harper’s Weekly. On…

This was a cartoon created by Richmond Whig and featured in the publication Harper's Weekly, which would go on to use the image on multiple occasions, the first one in 1868 and then once again in the year 1872. The cartoon itself showed an African…

Harper's Weekly was a popular American Political Magazine from 1857-1916. Many important events from U.S. history are documented in this magazine. Thomas Nast was responsible for publishing numerous cartoons for Harper's Weekly, such as this one.…

Thomas Nast created this illustration in 1866 for Harper's Weeklyshortly after the New Orleans Riot occurred. He started working atHarper's Weekly in 1862. He was a Radical Republican and supporter of the Union in the Civil War. He rose to fame…

Irish-born E. L. Godkin, a fearless liberal, founded the distinguished and long-lived New York Nation in 1865. So biting were his criticisms that the magazine was dubbed “the weekly day of judgment.” his views on the blunders of Reconstruction were…

The Southern Claims Commission (1871-1880) awarded monetary compensation to southerners who could prove that they had been loyal citizens of the United States and that the Union army had appropriated property from them during the Civil War. Local…

In August 1865, Tennessee planter P. H. Anderson entreated his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, to return to the plantation where he had been enslaved for more than thirty years of his life. Jourdon Anderson formerly served as an overseer on the…