Youth and Education
Nast was born in the barracks of Landau, Germany (now in Rhine Palatinate), the son of a trombonist in the Bavarian 9th regiment band; he had a half sister named Andie. The elder Nast's political convictions put him at odds with the Bavarian government, and in 1846 he left Landau, enlisting first on a French man-of-war and subsequently on an American ship. He sent his wife and children to New York City, and at the end of his enlistment in 1850 he joined them there.
Thomas Nast's passion for drawing was apparent from an early age, and he was enrolled for about a year of study with Alfred Fredericks and Theodore Kaufmann and at the school of the National Academy of Design. Nast attended school in New York City from the age of six to fifteen, when he was forced to drop out because of financial problems. The boy had problems adjusting to life in America and never took well to school. He spent his entire school career on the verge of flunking out and consequently was not an especially good speller. After school he started working in 1856 as a draftsman for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. On March 19, 1859, his drawings appeared for the first time in Harper's Weekly.
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