It was the political cartoons he published in Harper's Weekly that made Thomas Nast famous. His biting satires are credited with bringing about the defeat of New York City's infamous Boss Tweed, and it was Nast who made the donkey and the elephant political symbols. Yet, the artist's most lasting influence on the American scene occurred in another sphere altogether: He is the man who designed Saint Claus.

 

Saint Nicholas had arrived in America with the Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam. But their Saint "Nick" was seen as a bishop, proud and tall, dressed in clerical robes and carrying a birch staff. Nast, in contrast, visualized Santa Claus as the character had been described in his own Bavarian boyhood -- a rosy-cheeked, rotund figure of cheer in a fur suit.

 

Depicting the chubby elf of his imagination came easily to Nast. Having emigrated to New York at the age of 6 in 1846, he was enrolled in art school by the time he was 13, and just two years later had already begun his career as a newspaper illustrator. Nast's assignments included many major stories of the day, and by December of 1863 he needed a break. Designing the cover for the New Year's edition of Harper's Weekly, he drew a scene of a Union Army camp, but it focused on a fanciful Santa Claus, clad in stars and stripes, handing out toys to bemused soldiers.

 

Every Christmas for the next 23 years, Nast took a similar holiday from more serious subjects. In the process he not only gave form to the figure that Americans accept as the "real" Santa Claus, but also fixed Santa's activities in the minds of future generations. Toy-making in the North Pole workshop, the book in which Santa records children as naughty or nice, and the reindeer-drawn sleigh filled with toys were all memorably depicted by Nast. Even Santa's red suit is a Nast legacy. He decided that red would be more striking than any other hue when he illustrated one of the first colored children's books in 1866. 

 

(From: Discovering America's Past, 1993)

 

How to Fly a Horse, The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery, by Kevin Ashton. Hardcover, 336 pages; published by Doubleday, Jan. 20, 2015; ISBN-10: 0385538596, ISBN-13: 978-0385538596.

As a technology pioneer at MIT and as the leader of three successful start-ups, Kevin Ashton experienced firsthand the all-consuming challenge of creating something new. Now, in a tour-de-force narrative twenty years in the making, Ashton leads us on a journey through humanity's greatest creations to uncover the surprising truth behind who creates and how they do it. From the crystallographer's laboratory where the secrets of DNA were first revealed by a long forgotten woman, to the electromagnetic chamber where the stealth bomber was born on a twenty-five-cent bet, to the Ohio bicycle shop where the Wright brothers set out to "fly a horse," Ashton showcases the seemingly unremarkable individuals, gradual steps, multiple failures, and countless ordinary and usually uncredited acts that lead to our most astounding breakthroughs. Creators, he shows, apply in particular ways the everyday, ordinary thinking of which we are all capable, taking thousands of small steps and working in an endless loop of problem and solution. He examines why innovators meet resistance and how they overcome it, why most organizations stifle creative people, and how the most creative organizations work. Drawing on examples from art, science, business, and invention, from Mozart to the Muppets, Archimedes to Apple, Kandinsky to a can of Coke, How to Fly a Horse is a passionate and immensely rewarding exploration of how "new" comes to be.