from documentary to cartoon

During the American Civil War, Harper’s Weekly was one of the most widely read illustrated magazines in the nation. Most daily newspapers at the time could not publish images. But each issue of Harper’s contained detailed wood engravings that allowed readers to see the news. The magazine was staunchly pro-Union during the war and remained Republican leaning in the years that followed.

In the 1860s, both Winslow Homer and Thomas Nast, two talented illustrators, worked for Harper’s. Homer eventually left the magazine to become a successful painter, but Nast remained with Harper’s into the 1880s. There, he produced illustrations that made strong statements about the fate of ex-Confederate leaders and the national struggle over civil rights for African Americans.

Students in Akela Reason’s Hands-on Public History class selected Harper’s Weekly prints from the museum’s collection that focus on the Civil War and its aftermath. Each student studied a single print and wrote an accompanying label. They also viewed woodblocks at UGA’s Special Collections Libraries and became interested in how the magazine was made and consumed. A facsimile copy of a single issue is available in the galleries to allow visitors to feel what it was like to read Harper’s in the nineteenth century.