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Thomas Nast cartoon in yesterday's Montana school funding decision:
I was curious about theNast cartoon in J Alito's concurrence in ESPINOZA ET AL. v. MONTANA DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE ET AL, pdf: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Here's some background:
From https://www.harpweek.com/09cartoon/BrowseByDateCartoon.asp?Month=May&Date=8
“The American River Ganges”
May 8, 1875
Thomas Nast
[...]
This cartoon is one of Thomas Nast's most famous. It depicts Roman Catholic clergy as crocodiles invading America's shore to devour the nation's schoolchildren--white, black, American Indian, and Chinese. (The white children are prominent in front, the rest are in the background.) The public school building stands as a fortress against the threat of theocracy, but it has been bombarded and flies Old Glory upside down to signal distress.
Education in nineteenth-century America was provided by a variety of private, charitable, public, and combined public-private institutions, with the public school movement gaining strength over the decades. A major political issue during the 1870s was whether state and municipal governments should allocate funds for religiously affiliated schools, many of which were Roman Catholic. In most public schools, the Protestant version of the Bible was read, Protestant prayers were uttered, and Protestant teachers taught Protestant moral lessons. (Notice the boy in the cartoon who protects the younger students from the Catholic onslaught carries a Bible in his coat.) Catholic (and some Protestant) leaders asked that parochial schools receive their fair share of public funds. Protestant defenders of public schools erroneously considered that request to be an attempt by Catholics to destroy the spreading public school system.
In 1867, the New York state government accepted the principle of taxpayer-supported public education with the passage of the "free school" law. In May 1874, the legislature enacted a compulsory education bill, which took effect on January 1, 1875 (a few months before this cartoon appeared). The law stipulated that a census of all school-age children be taken, and that they attend classes at least fourteen weeks per year, with free textbooks loaned to those who could not afford them. (Harper & Brothers publishing firm was a major provider of schoolbooks.) For decades, though, mandatory school attendance was largely not enforced in New York City.
The publishers and staff of Harper’s Weekly, including cartoonist Thomas Nast, were mainly Protestant or secular liberals. Like most such Americans, they believed that the Roman Catholic Church was an antiquated, authoritarian institution that stood against the “Modernism” of a progressive society and democratic political institutions. Irish-Catholics in particular were suspected of being loyal primarily to the Vatican, rather than to the United States, and of not being capable of assimilation by nature or stubborn will. Furthermore, Irish-Catholics were overwhelmingly aligned with the Democratic Party, and more politically involved than other ethnic groups. The Republican newspaper was vehemently opposed to what it believed was the growing political and social influence of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.
[...]
May 8, 1875
Thomas Nast
[...]
This cartoon is one of Thomas Nast's most famous. It depicts Roman Catholic clergy as crocodiles invading America's shore to devour the nation's schoolchildren--white, black, American Indian, and Chinese. (The white children are prominent in front, the rest are in the background.) The public school building stands as a fortress against the threat of theocracy, but it has been bombarded and flies Old Glory upside down to signal distress.
Education in nineteenth-century America was provided by a variety of private, charitable, public, and combined public-private institutions, with the public school movement gaining strength over the decades. A major political issue during the 1870s was whether state and municipal governments should allocate funds for religiously affiliated schools, many of which were Roman Catholic. In most public schools, the Protestant version of the Bible was read, Protestant prayers were uttered, and Protestant teachers taught Protestant moral lessons. (Notice the boy in the cartoon who protects the younger students from the Catholic onslaught carries a Bible in his coat.) Catholic (and some Protestant) leaders asked that parochial schools receive their fair share of public funds. Protestant defenders of public schools erroneously considered that request to be an attempt by Catholics to destroy the spreading public school system.
In 1867, the New York state government accepted the principle of taxpayer-supported public education with the passage of the "free school" law. In May 1874, the legislature enacted a compulsory education bill, which took effect on January 1, 1875 (a few months before this cartoon appeared). The law stipulated that a census of all school-age children be taken, and that they attend classes at least fourteen weeks per year, with free textbooks loaned to those who could not afford them. (Harper & Brothers publishing firm was a major provider of schoolbooks.) For decades, though, mandatory school attendance was largely not enforced in New York City.
The publishers and staff of Harper’s Weekly, including cartoonist Thomas Nast, were mainly Protestant or secular liberals. Like most such Americans, they believed that the Roman Catholic Church was an antiquated, authoritarian institution that stood against the “Modernism” of a progressive society and democratic political institutions. Irish-Catholics in particular were suspected of being loyal primarily to the Vatican, rather than to the United States, and of not being capable of assimilation by nature or stubborn will. Furthermore, Irish-Catholics were overwhelmingly aligned with the Democratic Party, and more politically involved than other ethnic groups. The Republican newspaper was vehemently opposed to what it believed was the growing political and social influence of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.
[...]
4 replies
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