Thomas Nast His body was returned to the United States, where he was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City. Nast's depictions of iconic characters, such as Santa Claus and Uncle Sam, are widely credited as forming the basis of popular depictions used today. Additional contributions by Nast include: In December 2011, a proposal to include Nast in the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2012 caused controversy. "The Wall Street Journal" reported that because of his stereotypical cartoons of the Irish, a number of objections were raised about Nast's work. For example, "The Usual Irish Way of
Thomas Nast and independents. Nast expressed anti-Irish sentiment by depicting them as violent drunks. He used Irish people as a symbol of mob violence, machine politics, and the exploitation of immigrants by political bosses. Nast's emphasis on Irish violence may have originated in scenes he witnessed in his youth. Nast was physically small and had experienced bullying as a child. In the neighborhood in which he grew up, acts of violence by the Irish against black Americans were commonplace. In 1863, he witnessed the New York City draft riots in which a mob composed mainly of Irish immigrants burned the Colored Orphan