Thomas Nast Papers

Collection of letters of American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902) and his family -- his wife, Sarah Edwards Nast, and his son Thomas Nast, Jr. There are twenty five letters by Thomas Nast, chiefly addressed to his wife, written during his trips to England and Italy to cover the Heenan-Sayers prizefight and Giuseppe Garabaldi's military campaign in Sicily (1860), (this group also includes six letters addressed to William Luson Thomas, 1830-1900), the tour of Pennsylvania battlefields in the summer of 1863, the trip to Washington in the beginning of 1872, his 1873 lecture tour, and from Guayaquil, Ecuador (1902). Also included are three letters from Sarah Edwards Nast to her husband (1859 and 1869). There is also a copy (in the hand of Mrs. Nast) of a satire of Andrew Johnson ("So sayeth King Andy Johnson"), perhaps a caption to a political cartoon.

The rest of the collection are letters of condolence and official correspondence dealing with Thomas Nast's death and settling of his accounts. Correspondents include Herbert Henry Henry Davis Peirce and Theodore Roosevelt.

Selected Nast's letters were published by Albert Bigelow Paine in his Th. Nast : his period and his pictures (New York : Macmillan; London : Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1904).