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Jan 14, 2020 · The elephant was not intentionally decided or chosen to represent the Republican Party. The symbol was first used as a political symbol in 1864 during Lincoln’s campaign and also in 1872 by the Harper’s. However, Thomas Nest is credited with popularizing the symbol.
- John Misachi
- Overview
- HISTORY Vault: U.S. Presidents
Why the elephant and the donkey?
The Democratic Party’s donkey and the Republican Party’s elephant have been on the political scene since the 19th century. The origins of the Democratic donkey can be traced to the 1828 presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson. During that race, opponents of Jackson called him a jackass. However, rather than rejecting the label, Jackson, a hero of the War of 1812 who later served in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, was amused by it and included an image of the animal in his campaign posters. Jackson went on to defeat incumbent John Quincy Adams and serve as America’s first Democratic president. In the 1870s, influential political cartoonist Thomas Nast helped popularize the donkey as a symbol for the entire Democratic Party.
America 101: Why a Donkey for Democrats?
The Republican Party was formed in 1854 and six years later Abraham Lincoln became its first member elected to the White House. An image of an elephant was featured as a Republican symbol in at least one political cartoon and a newspaper illustration during the Civil War (when “seeing the elephant” was an expression used by soldiers to mean experiencing combat), but the pachyderm didn’t start to take hold as a GOP symbol until Thomas Nast, who’s considered the father of the modern political cartoon, used it in an 1874 Harper’s Weekly cartoon.
Titled “The Third-Term Panic,” Nast’s drawing mocked the New York Herald, which had been critical of President Ulysses Grant’s rumored bid for a third term, and portrayed various interest groups as animals, including an elephant labeled “the Republican vote,” which was shown standing at the edge of a pit. Nast employed the elephant to represent Republicans in additional cartoons during the 1870s, and by 1880 other cartoonists were using the creature to symbolize the party.
America 101: Why an Elephant for Republicans?
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- Elizabeth Nix
- 1 min
Often used to refer to both the GOP logo wordmark, the elephant icon, and the unique colors of the Republican Party, the logo has remained a strong symbol of American heritage for decades. Get ready to take a closer look at the Republican logo meaning, and its history….
May 17, 2024 · Many attribute the first use of the elephant as a symbol of the Republican Party in the US to the political cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902). He can certainly be credited with giving both the Democratic and Republican parties their mascots, and assigned the donkey to the Democratic Party.
Whatever the reason, Nast’s popularity and consistent use of the elephant ensured that it would remain in the American consciousness as a Republican symbol. Like Andrew Jackson, the Republican...
Mar 18, 2016 · The elephant had been associated with the Republican Party since it was shown celebrating Union victories in an advertisement that appeared in an 1864 issue of the newspaper Father Abraham.
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Sep 6, 2016 · In 1874, Harper's Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast drew a caricature of the Republican Party as an elephant seen as the lasting link between the two.
