In this cartoon, Columbia says, "Hands off, gentlemen! America means fair play for all men" in response to the uptick in anti-Chinese sentiment in the decades following the Civil War. On the pages of Harper's Weekly, one of the leading mass market periodicals of the late nineteenth century, Cartoonist Thomas Nast defended Chinese immigrants against the harsh discrimination and racism they faced in the late nineteenth century. Eventually, anti-immigration sentiment prevailed, with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1884--the first time that federal law barred an ethnic group from entry into the United States. | Creator: Thomas Nast, Harper's Weekly | Date: 1871 | Source: Harpweek, Harper's Weekly, February 18, 1871 | Rights: HarpweekDownload Original File
