Go, Note: Thomas Nast As Bellwether Of Racial Attitudes

I'm more of a "history is decidedly more complex than we envision it, albeit made up of some frighteningly base and simplistic attitudes" guy, so to read an essay like this one from Joan Walsh where the Civil War and post Civil War Reconstruction are seen to be made up of pretty much a singular, continuous national idea made up of vastly complex and nuanced attitudes kinds of runs right up against what I believe in 10,000 ways. Still, there's a brief mention of Thomas Nast here as kind of the embodiment of post-Civil War attitudes towards blacks given suffrage that I'd never seen expressed quite that way before. While I'm not sure they represent a shift in engagement on the issues the way Walsh seems to believe -- I can see someone holding both opinions from the start -- it's certainly something worth noting especially given Nast's reputation as an opinion-former rather than someone whose work reflected the changing world around him.
 
posted 9:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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