Andrew Johnson as Iago
Thomas Nast (1840-1902)
Andrew Jackson's Reconstruction and How It
Works
Harper's Weekly, September 1, 1866
Ben and Beatrice Goldstein Foundation Collection
Prints & Photographs Division (13)
LC-DIG-ppmsca-13467
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Thomas Nast, cartoonist for Harper's Weekly from 1859 to
1860 and from 1862 until 1886, often used Shakespearean motifs
to comment on current events. In this cartoon, Nast intended to
generate opposition to the lenient Reconstruction plan of President
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) and to promote in the 1866 elections
Republican congressional candidates, who favored a more radical
policy. The artist portrays Johnson as the evil Iago plotting against
the heroic and innocent Othello, shown as a wounded black Union
veteran being denied his place in American political life.
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