Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor, alongside illustrations. It carried extensive coverage of the American Civil War, including many illustrations of events from the war. During its most influential period, it was the forum of the political cartoonist Thomas Nast.

Along with his brothers James, John, and Wesley, Fletcher Harper began the publishing company Harper & Brothers in 1825. Following the successful example of The Illustrated London News, Harper started publishing Harper's Magazine in 1850. The monthly publication featured established authors such as Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, and within several years, demand for the magazine was great enough to sustain a weekly edition.

In 1857, his company began publishing Harper's Weekly in New York City. By 1860, the circulation of the Weekly had reached 200,000. Illustrations were an important part of the Weekly's content, and it developed a reputation for using some of the most renowned illustrators of the time, notably Winslow Homer, Granville Perkins, Porte Crayon, and Livingston Hopkins.

Among the recurring features were the political cartoons of Thomas Nast, who was recruited in 1862 and worked with the Weekly for more than 20 years. Nast was a feared caricaturist, and is often called the father of American political cartooning. He was the first to use an elephant as the symbol of the Republican Party. He also drew the legendary character of Santa Claus; his version became strongly associated with the figure, who was popularized as part of Christmas customs in the late nineteenth century.

Harper's Weekly was the most widely read journal in the United States during the American Civil War era of the mid-19th century. Harper's took a moderate editorial position on the issue of slavery prior to the Civil War's outbreak in 1861, earning it the label "Harper's Weakly" by critics.

During the 1860 U.S. presidential campaign, the magazine supported Stephen A. Douglas in his campaign against Abraham Lincoln. But as the American Civil War broke out, the magazine fully supported Lincoln and the Union. A July 1863 article in The Weekly on the escaped slave Gordon included an illustration taken from a photograph of his back, severely scarred from whippings. The image provided many readers in the North their first visual evidence of slavery's brutality. The image and story inspired many free blacks in the North to enlist in the Union Army.

Many of the most important articles and illustrations in Harper's were related to the American Civil War. Besides illustrations by Homer and Nast, the magazine published illustrations by Theodore R. Davis, Henry Mosler, and the brothers Alfred and William Waud.^{[citation needed]}

Beginning in 1863 until his death in 1892, George William Curtis, one of the founders of the Republican Party, served as the magazine's political editor. His editorials advocated civil service reform, low tariffs, and adherence to the gold standard.