This Week's Sneak Peek

As a symbol of the Republican party, the elephant dates back to 1864, the party's third presidential election. A pro-Lincoln newspaper in Pennsylvania (published 1864-1873), Father Abraham, published a picture of an elephant carrying a banner reading "The Elephant Is Coming" amid text about how the Lincoln was headed to victory in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Maryland.

Thomas Nast's series of cartoons featuring a Republican elephant came ten years later, starting with "Third Term Panic," depicting a braying donkey (representing the Democratic-leaning New York Herald) in a lion's skin inciting panic among other animals. Prominent among them is an elephant on a precarious footbridge (with planks labeled "deflation," "reform," "repudiation" and "Reconstruction") over a chasm of "Southern claims chaos."