Harpers Weekly: Pop culture reflecting Anti- Catholic Attitudes

Introduction

Difference within a society is not something that is easily maintained and controlled, as I am sure you gathered from reading other pages on this site. It is something that takes a great set of tools to achieve and maintain. One of the most powerful tools is that of pop culture. It connects to really powerful mass communication, that allows for messages to be spread to large audiences very easily. In modern times examples of this would be television and social media. When you watch a television show that perhaps has storylines that perpetuate racist stereotypes, that helps maintain the power of those stereotypes and differences in society. You can see this reflected with social media, which is essentially a global forum. When you read that tweet or facebook post talking about the fear of terrorists, their view may just be connected to that TV show you watched earlier which had a terrorist as a villain. The inspiration for this article on the website is to look into what that might look like in the past. A very common way to examine the pop culture of yesteryear is with newspapers and magazines. Imagine you are living in America during the run of Harper's Weekly, the magazine we will look at for this case study. You open it and see scathing political cartoons depicting Irish catholics in horrible ways. And you see this content week after week in every issue, eventually you may just start to believe what you are seeing. Now imagine the other side, you are an Irish Catholic reading the paper. Eventually you will start to feel like an “other” in society. We will be taking a deeper look into specific cartoons featured in Harper's Weekly today. The goal is a deeper understanding of the nature of how these cartoons contextualize religious differences in American society at the time.

Harpers Weekly: Journal of Civilization

"Bravo, Bravo!" https://omeka.chrc-phila.org/items/show/7356

First let's set the scene for the cartoons you are going to see: Harper's Weekly was a political magazine based in New York City during the time period of 1857-1916 founded by the Harper Brothers (Jarman 2010). The magazine went on to become extremely popular, with a circulation of 120,000 (Ohio State University). It became a defining feature of American pop culture. It featured news, political commentary, stories, and oftentimes political cartoons. These political cartoons were a first of their kind in a way, and defined the Harper's Weekly brand and image. It helped create and maintain the magazine's popularity. These cartoons were usually made by Thomas Naast, the focus of our research today, who used the magazine as a sort of forum for his views and opinions. These allowed for cartoons that perpetuated difference to be often showcased, namely against the Catholics, especially Irish ones. Lets take a look at four examples of these cartoons.

The American River Ganges

This comic is titled “The American River Canges” which is one of Thomas Naasts most famous anti-catholic cartoons in his entire run of having a forum in Harper's Weekly (Walfred 2014). This was from the September 30, 1871 article. This was created during a time of two historical events. One, was most protests of Irish-Catholics over the issue of schools using Protestant bibles and prayers in schools (Shank 2018). The other concern was that of Parochial schools, which is schooling offered by a religous organization, this time the Catholic church. Some politicians, namel "Boss Tweed" a democrat from New York, was in favor of state money funding these schools. (Shank 2018). Tweed will be a reoccurring character in these comics. This one depicts alligators rising up from the River Gange to attack children. The alligators are notably designed to look like Catholic priest garb. We see in the back a government building, now with flags associated with Catholics in view. We also see from the mountain, Boss Tweed himself lowering down a child to the alligators. This reflects Nast view that the Catholics are trying to invade schools, and corrupt children. Which is just another stage in the plot for them to take over America.

"The American River Ganges. The priests and the children" https://omeka.chrc-phila.org/items/show/7357

Chorus of Rising Patriots

"Chorus of Rising Patriots (?). 'We can not tell a lie! We did not do it!'"https://omeka.chrc-phila.org/items/show/7364

This cartoon by Nast is from 1876 and was the cover of Harper's Weekly for the week. This comic also features children, but in a different way. In this comic the children are depicting the Irish Catholics. These children have cut down "the tree of Truth" and replaced it with a new sign that says "Our Rule, Mob Rule." This is diving into ideas that Irish-Catholics do not respect democracy and only care about violence to make what they want happen. This will be a topic we see brought up again later on. The children are also shown supporting Boss Tweed, making his second appearance in these comics (Shank 2018). This raises the question of how much the Irish-Catholics are able to think on their own, and if they are even capable of governance at all. The woman is Columbia, a symbol for America. The sticks she is holding read "In union there is strength, patriotism, honor and unity" and the sign behind her says "School of the old 1776." She is representing American values and defending the American way of life, something that Nast believed was in danger because of the Catholics.

The Promised Land

Lets now take a look into a very common conspiracy for why the Catholics were just so untrustworthy and unfit to be in America. The concern was not their religious beliefs, but their apparent allegiance to a foreign power. That power is the Pope. This connected to a very common fear that the Pope wanted to rule the United States and end their democracy. This comic is from 1870 and was also the cover of Harper's Weekly. It depicts the Pope and other clergy atop St Peter's basilica where they are looking off to "The Promised Land" aka America. We also see weapons behind them, implying that America needs to be prepared for violence. This cartoon is a visual representation of what so many Americans feared about Catholics and the Pope. It also helps fuel that fire, remember this magazine had 120,000 copies in circulation.Many people were seeing this cartoon, and possibly changing their views of catholics because of it.

"'The Promised Land,' as seen from the Dome of St. Peter's, Rome" https://omeka.chrc-phila.org/items/show/7354

Something that will not "blow over"

“Something that will not "blow over." https://omeka.chrc-phila.org/items/show/7366

The above comic reflects a very common view of the Catholic, namely Irish Catholic. That being that they are a violent, destructive and lying group of people. This cartoon was made following the Orange Riot of 1871, where Irish-Catholic protestors clashed with the national guard to protect an Irish-Protestant parade (Gordon 1993). This inspired many drawings from Nast, including the one above which is inspired by the Draft Riots of 1863 in which Irish-Catholics caused havoc in New York City. This represents how the Orange Riot is not a one time event, that Catholics in general are dangerous and violent, and it perpetuates over time. These riots will not "blow over" as the title suggests. At the top of the drawing is written how the Catholics have "no caste, no sect, no nation, and rights" which suggests they have a lack of respect for American society. The Catholics are also depicted with primate like features which makes them look like animals. It implies that they are primitive, violent, and dumb. This cartoon really focuses on how Catholics, especially those of Irish descent, are a primitive, destrucive group who just do not fit in with American culture.

What do we see in modern times?

From: https://www.politico.com/gallery/2023/12/01/the-nations-cartoonists-on-the-week-in-politics-00129447?slide=2

I give you this Political cartoon from Politico released on December,1,2023. I ask you to think what message this is putting out to the world and the narrative it is perpetuating. I view this as maintaining difference in our global society once again, and using the medium of a cartoon to do it. Pop culture is still being used to this day to perpetuate difference in our society, the difference has just evolved from religion to now including wars, countries and political groups. But in my opinion, this cartoon might just still perpetuate differences based on religion. I just ask that our readers take a deep look at political cartoons when they see them and think about what is being perpetuated in them.

Conclusion

Pop culture is a powerful tool for perpetuating difference in society. In this section of the website we examined how this is used to perpetuate and construct difference in regards to religion. We saw how a religious group can be transformed into a lying, violent, stupid group of people who will just never be able to integrate into American society. This is all done with the medium of cartoons seen in a magazine read by over 100,000 people at its peak. This is an example of just how powerful and widespread a tool pop culture can be in terms of constructing difference in society. I am also of the opinion that these cartoons are used to visualize peoples opinions, to make them seem even more persuasive then just words could be. As seen in the cartoon from modern times, the political cartoon is an aspect of pop culture that is being used to this day to maintain difference and get out opinions.

References

DeBrava, V. (2001). The offending hand of war in harper’s “weekly.” American Periodicals, 11, 49–64. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20771138

Gordon, M. A. (1993). The Orange riots: Irish political violence in New York City, 1870 and 1871. Cornell University Press.

Jarman, B. (2010). The graphic art of thomas nast: Politics and propriety in postbellum publishing. American Periodicals, 20(2), 156–189. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23025187

Kamphoefner, W. (2014, February 2). “The American River Ganges” – 30 September, 1871. Illustrating Chinese Exclusion. https://thomasnastcartoons.com/irish-catholic-cartoons/the-american-river-ganges-1871/

Luders-Manuel, S. (2017, May 4). Race and labor in the 1863 new york city draft riots. JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/race-and-labor-in-the-1863-new-york-city-draft-riots/

Mott, F. L. (1938). A history of American magazines. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. http://archive.org/details/historyofamerica05mott

Ohio State Library. (n.d.). Harper’s weekly | Thomas Nast: Prince of caricaturists. Retrieved December 5, 2023, from https://library.osu.edu/site/thomasnast/harpers-weekly/

Shank, P. (2018a, January 22). Thomas nast anti-irish cartoons. Catholic Historical Research Center of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. https://chrc-phila.org/thomas-nast-anti-irish-cartoons/

Shank, P. (2018b, February 12). Thomas nast anti-catholic cartoons. Catholic Historical Research Center of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. https://chrc-phila.org/thomas-nast-anti-catholic-cartoons/

William “boss” tweed and political machines. (n.d.). Bill of Rights Institute. Retrieved December 5, 2023, from https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/william-boss-tweed-and-political-machines/

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