The image of Catholicism and the Irish in the works of Thomas Nast

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the visual images of Catholicism and the Irish, created by the famous American artist Thomas Nast in the 1860s and 1870s. In this perspective, the problem has not been specifically considered either in American or Russian historiography. Thomas Nast created a negative image of the Roman Catholic Church as conservative, frozen in the Middle Ages, far from progress, striving to establish political dominance in the United States. An attempt by the Catholic Church in the United States to obtain the state funding for its own schools is being discussed separately. The article analyzes T. Nast’s racist discourse, expressed in the creation of a common stereotype of the Irish as degenerate, ape-like creatures belonging to an inferior race compared to the Anglo-Saxon, Celtic race, endowed with a set of negative connotations. Thomas Nast created dozens of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish cartoons that helped shape American public opinion in the spirit of xenophobia and incitement to interethnic and interfaith hostility. At the same time, he defended the secular nature of public schools and protected the principle of the separation of church and state. The article’s methodological database is founded on comparative studies, includes historical-genetic, historical- typological methods, discourse analysis, the achievements of imagology and visual studies.
The sources of the publication include the materials created for the “Harper’s Weekly” for the 1860s and 1870s. The article contributes to the understanding of the phenomenon of widespread Nativism, xenophobia, and intolerance towards Irish Catholics and Catholicism during the Reconstruction period.