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helped popularize the modern image of Santa Claus. Nast's Civil War period images of jolly old St. Nick in 'Harper's Weekly' served as propaganda for the Union and his other well known portrayals were made into the 1880s. He also gave us the donkey for democrats and the elephant for republicans.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/civil-war-cartoonist-created-modern-image-santa-claus-union-propaganda-180971074/
Union soldiers at Christmastime, Thomas Nast's first drawing of Santa Claus for Harper's Weekly, Jan. 1863.
'Merry Old Santa Claus' by Thomas Nast's most popular Christmas image, 1881.
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