The Donkey and the Elephant (1870)

It’s January 19h. This day in 1870, a political cartoon by Thomas Mast depicts a donkey to represent southern Democrats. Around this same time, Nast also starts to use the elephant for Republicans. Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the very convoluted origins of the very strange mascots — and whether the donkey-elephant divide even works anymore. Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week. Find out more at thisdaypod.com This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories. If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia