Thomas Nast

Who Stole the People's Money?, Harper's Weekly, 1871 Thomas Nast drew Boss Tweed and his Tammany Hall circle standing in a ring, facing outward and passing the blame around, a single image that summed up a whole city's corruption for readers who would never follow the accounts. It belongs to the campaign that helped bring the Democratic machine down, and legend has it that Tweed ordered someone to stop those pictures. The final twist is the best: after Tweed escaped to Spain in 1875, an official there recognized him from a Nast cartoon. Few drawings have done more to show what caricature can do to a powerful man.