A Gift for Thomas Nast

Thomas Nast was born in Germany and moved to the United States when he was five years old. He was an artist who drew for a newspaper called Harper's Weekly.

When he first started working at Harper's Weekly it was 1862 and the United States was in the beginning of the Civil War. The Southern states fought the Northern States over whether or not people could enslave other people.

Slavery was a system of control put in place by Europeans and Americans in order to use the knowledge, labor and skills of people who had been brought from Africa. The goal of that system was to turn people into property. We use the term enslaved because it was something that was done to people. No one let themselves be a slave.

The images Thomas Nast drew in the newspaper informed people about the war, influenced them to support the Northern states, and commented about the choices politicians made. He always supported the soldiers during the war and as a thank you, the soldiers in the Army and Navy gave him a gift, a large silver canteen.

A canteen is a small water bottle used by soldiers or campers. The one made as a gift for Thomas Nast was much bigger than the canteens used by the soldiers. It was a decoration.

The canteen has many American symbols on it. Let's look closer at the different symbols in the next activity.