Alien Menace

Michael O'Malley, Associate Professor of History and Art History, George Mason University

In this 1870 image, by the famous political cartoonist Thomas Nast, the Pope and his henchmen look out from the dome of St. Peters's cathedral in Rome: they have their sights set on conquest, across the Atlantic to North America

In this well known cartoon from Harper's Weekly, 1871, Catholic bishops, drawn to look like alligators, crawl out to threaten the American family and the American public school. A native white father, the Bible thrust into his vest, tries to protect his family while behind him, Boss Tweed and his cronies drop children into the river to be devoured by Catholics. In the left background stands St. Peter's cathedral, the center of the Roman Catholic church: it has been re-labled "Tammany Hall."