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Greeley's Campaign Falters |
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“Key-Note of the Campaign” |
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Cartoonist: Thomas Nast |
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Source: Harper's Weekly |
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Date:
September 28, 1872, pp. 752-753
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Click to return to previous version of this
cartoon |
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Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
September found the Greeley presidential campaign
to be a deeply dispirited enterprise of weirdly dissimilar factions, the leaders
of which were hoping against hope to bring down the incumbent Republican
war-hero in the White House, U.S. Grant. Nast's "Key-Note of the
Campaign" is a virtuoso display of portrait caricature amidst a carnival of
depression, alarm, frustration, anger, nausea, and mortification. A central
point in the cartoon is that the plans of the Liberal-Republican progenitor,
Senator Carl Schurz (seated at the piano), have gone seriously awry. Schurz had
been exceedingly surprised and disheartened by Greeley's nomination, but had
stoically joined the campaign.
The idea for the cartoon had been suggested after the Cincinnati convention by
the Cincinnati Evening Post (May 15). The newspaper reported journalist Samuel
Bowles account (originally printed in the Springfield Republican) of a meeting
of Liberal Republicans in a private home. All were dejected after the Greeley
win and Adams loss of the nomination. "Mr. Schurz was unable to speak, but
going to the piano, played with the skill of the accomplished amateur he is …
There was not a dry eye .. in the whole company …" Nast willingly took
the hint with the cartoon "Played Out!" (June 15). The scene was
transferred from Cincinnati to Washington, D.C., and Schurz's theme became an
attack on Grant.
Here, the cartoonist returns to the motif three months later. The New York Times
commented (September 19) that "'Key-Note of the Campaign' is perhaps
superior in point of elaboration and careful grouping to anything which has yet
been produced by the great American caricaturist. A more perfect gallery of
portraits could not be arranged … Face, expression and pose are equally
characteristic and unmistakable …" Although Nast would not have been
aware of it when completing the plate for "Key-Note" in early
September, Greeley would be out of town on a campaign tour during most of the
time this plate was in print. Thus his absence would give this study of
dissension in the ranks of his followers additional force and relevance. |
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Warning
1860
