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Ever wonder where on earth the Democrats got the donkey as a symbol of their party, and how the Republicans got theirs? I have. Well, it turns out a famous political cartoonist named Thomas Nast came up with both back in 1874.

Nast was America’s most influential political cartoonist from the Civil War to about the turn of the last century. Nast, a staunch Republican, used the jackass to portray what he thought were the Democrats: hardheaded, and downright stubborn. Surely the Democrats didn’t like it, but the symbol stuck, and they made the best of it. They kept the symbol, but called it a donkey, not an ass.

In 1874 and a few weeks before the election, Nast drew a cartoon of a rogue elephant for Harper’s Magazine. The rogue elephant represented the Republican voters, who he felt were being panicked by the Democrats. Apparently, some Democrats were spreading fears of the then running Republican president Ulysses S. Grant, who had been thinking of running for a 3^rd term. At the time, the system of a two term presidency, set by George Washington, and a tradition in Washington since, was a code that no one should violate. If you did violate it, you were stigmatized and considered ,or condemned as someone seeking an undemocratic grab of imperial power. I find it amusing that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, was the first and only one to violate that code in the 30’s & 40’s. Nast’s rogue elephant was a rebuke at Harper’s Magazine’s editor James Gorden Benett who in a series of articles had criticized Grant’s thoughts of running for a 3^rd term.

Well, the Republicans kept the elephant as their symbol, after all, they liked to be thought of as tough, hoofed mammals having very thick skin, so the the elephant stuck. For the record, Nast is also responsible for shaping our image of Santa Claus. He created the face of the Santa Claus we’ve all come to know and love. And if you can believe it, Van Gogh was influenced by this cartoonist. It is said that Van Gogh had a collection of Nast illustrations in a bound volume which he referred to from time to time.

The issues of the late 1800’s have long gone, but the donkey and elephant are still here, and remain our political reference point whenever we see them.

References: The Greatest Stories Never Told, harpweek.com

Have you ever imagined what it was like to get a tooth pulled back in the 1800’s? Lack of regular check-ups often meant that the first and last resort for many suffering from tooth decay was extraction. Painful under even the best of circumstances, an inexperienced tooth-drawer armed with a pair of pliers-like forceps, or more commonly a tooth key (an iron hook on the end of a “T”-shaped handle) might easily break the patient’s jaw, or pull out healthy teeth and even bits of jawbone along with an aching molar. Through infection, this excruciating deformation could prove fatal.

Ooh, just the thought of that makes me cringe! Horace Wells takes his wife out on a date on December 10, 1844. Horace was a dentist who more than likely had been using the crude methods of the day when he removed teeth. The show he and his wife were going to see was going to be performed by a “Professor” Gardner Quincy Colton. Part of the act was having volunteers from the audience inhale laughing gas. And we all know what happens when you inhale laughing gas. You basically act drunk, have uncontrollable laughter, and say and do stupid things. This amused the audience. On this night, one of the participants ran into the audience chasing an imaginary enemy. When he returned to his seat, he realized he had a lacerated leg, but didn’t start to feel pain until the effects of the gas wore off.

Horace immediately thought how this laughing gas could be used in dentistry. He asked the Professor to come to his practice so they could perform a tooth extraction using nitrous oxide (laughing gas). Horace had a patient who had a troublesome tooth and used him as the guinea pig. The professor administered enough gas to render the poor soul unconscious. One of Horace’s assistants removed the tooth successfully without any pain to the patient. After this success the professor and Horace become partners and collaborate to perform pain-free operations on several patients. They used a crude method to administer the gas, but it worked, and it appeared complication-free.

After about a dozen operations Horace’s assistant, William Morton urges him to go public with it. Reluctantly he agrees to give a lecture and demonstration at Massachusetts General Hospital. But unfortunately, it was a major flop. When the gas was administered to the patient, they had removed the gasbag too soon. The patient was in a twilight sleep, but not completely unconscious when his tooth was extracted. The patient testified that he felt pain, although not as bad as when he wasn’t given any anesthetic. He couldn’t repeat the demonstration as there were no other patients present. The doctors brushed him off, and considered the demonstration a “humbug affair.” They booed him out the lecture hall. Embarrassed and defeated he returned home and sold his practice. He became even more morose when he finds out his assistant, Morton had developed an ether-based anesthesia and was using it in hospitals with great success.

He lived in France for a while, but couldn’t revived his career. He moved back to the states and started to experiment with chloroform which made him increasingly unhinged. He attacks two prostitutes with sulfuric acid and is sent to prison, where he commits suicide. He cut a large artery in his leg, after inhaling chloroform to stop the pain. He used his anesthesia research to help him commit his own painless death.

Most of us know the song or anthem of the South, “Dixie.” What if I told you this song was written by a damned Yankee? Well it was.  On a rainy Sunday night, composer Daniel Decatur Emmett wrote “Dixie,” for Bryant’s Minstrels. Bryant Minstrels was a “blackfaced” minstrel which was popular at that time. Once Bryant wrote the song it became a hit and soon other minstrel shows used it too.

How did it become the South’s anthem? On the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States, “Dixie” was played, and he must’ve liked the tune so much because it became the marching song for the Confederate army. This tune spread like wildfire across the south and soon everyone was whistling “Dixie.”

The damned Yankee, Emmett, was aghast because he was a staunch Union supporter. He is quoted as saying, “If I’d known to what use they were going to put my song, I’ll be damned if I’d have written it!” Hum…a damned Yankee he truly was.

I think Lincoln may have had a beef with this because the day after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, a band outside the White House was asked to play the famous “Dixie.” And Lincoln is quoted as saying, “I have always thought Dixie one of the best tunes I ever heard.” He continues, “Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but we have fairly captured it.”  The song continued its popularity for quite a while, in fact, at age 80 Emmett made a farewell tour and sang the song to standing ovations all across the country.

Source, The Greatest Stories Never Told