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Tag: Thomas Nast

The River Ganges

The River Ganges

Look closely: those crocodiles coming ashore to eat the children are actually Catholic Bishops!  The boy standing bravely on the beach has a Holy Bible sticking out of his coat. A gutted building behind them is labelled Public Schools.  What’s this all about? In the 1870s, when this Thomas Nast cartoon was published, Protestants were aggressively casting Catholics as anti-Bible.  The reason: the Catholics resisted having their kids forced to read the King James version of the Bible (instead of…

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Dont believe it
“Don’t Believe That”

“Don’t Believe That”

First, note how the Catholic children and the priest are depicted as baboon-like creatures.  This Thomas Nast cartoon, which appeared in Harpers, refers to a Bible-in-the-schools controversy that erupted in Long Island City, Queens, in 1875. The school board had required children to read from the King James Version; Catholic students could either sit in the room during the exercise or leave for the day. In a gutsy form of civil disobedience, the Catholic children responded by blocking their ears…

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