Skip to main content
Artist/Maker
Thomas Nast
(American, born Germany, 1840 - 1902)
Datepublished May 20, 1871
MediumWood engraving on newsprint
DimensionsComposition: 13 1/2 × 9 1/8 in. (34.3 × 23.2 cm)
Sheet: 16 1/8 × 11 1/2 in. (41 × 29.2 cm)
Credit LineGift of Professor Emeritus Jay Williams, Class of 1954
Object number2019.13.133
Not on view
Description"Through his illustration of an impoverished wife pleading with her husband, Nast conjures middle-class anti-union sentiments. In the decades following the Civil War, support for trade unions was mixed: some believed that workers should trust their employers instead of union leaders who engaged in strikes. Contrasting with the wealthy family in the background, the worker contributes his hard-earned wages to the Workingmen's Association, against the interests of his wife and children. Nast portrays the woman as a moral foil to her husband: slightly hunched over with an empty basket, she gazes at up at him in desperation. Her compromising position mirrors her economic dependence allowing the viewer to empathize with her situation and condemn his actions."
(SOURCE: Mary Bei Prince, "Thomas Nast's Conception of Nineteenth Century Women", 2019)
Collections
Additional Details
Provenance
2019: Hamilton College (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art), by gift of Jay G. Williams.
Signature
Signed "Th Nast" in block at lower right composition.
Inscribed
Title typeset beneath image in black ink. Page number "468," publisher, and publication date "Supplement, May 20, 1871" typeset above image in black ink.
Thomas Nast
Date: published January 3, 1863
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.26
Thomas Nast
Date: published January 24, 1863
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.28
Thomas Nast
Date: published August 5, 1865
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.71
Thomas Nast
Date: published December 5 , 1863
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.47
Thomas Nast
Date: published April 9, 1864
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.57
Thomas Nast
Date: published November 11, 1871
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.153
Thomas Nast
Date: published November 20, 1869
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.111
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
Date: c. 1913
Medium: Seravazza and Sicilian marble
Object number: 2005.6.2
Thomas Nast
Date: published October 17, 1874
Medium: Wood engraving on newsprint
Object number: 2019.13.255
Dorothy Shakespear
Date: 1937
Medium: Watercolor on paper, mounted on cardboard
Object number: 1996.10
Dorothy Shakespear
Date: c. 1914-19
Medium: Watercolor and graphite on paper
Object number: 1994.200