The History of Uncle Sam

September 7 marks the 195^th birthday of Uncle Sam. The nickname for the United States was given in 1813 and linked to Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, New York. The nickname eventually lead to a personification of the United States and was used in a great deal of campaigning and recruiting plans.

During the War of 1812, Samuel Wilson supplied barrels of beef to the United States Army and stamped "U.S." on the outsides. The soldiers soon jokingly referring to the food as "Uncle Sam's" and eventually a local newspaper picked up the story. The coverage led to the people of the United States to adopt "Uncle Sam" as the nickname for the U.S. federal government.

Over time, several cartoonists and artists began developing the image of the Uncle Sam we picture today. The first image came from political cartoonist Thomas Nast in the late 1860s and 1870s. Nast took the idea of Uncle Sam and tied it to an elderly man with a white beard and a stars-and-stripes suit.

Nast was responsible for a great deal of our country's most popular imagery. He created the donkey as the symbol for the Democratic Party and the elephant as the symbol for the Republican Party, as well as a modern drawing of "Merry Old Santa Claus," which was featured in Harper's Weekly on January 1, 1881.

Artist James Montgomery Flagg took the image of Uncle Sam a step further and created possibly Uncle Sam's most famous picture. His version of Uncle Sam showed him wearing a tall top hat with a wide blue band and white stars, a red bow tie and a blue jacket. Uncle Sam is staring sternly ahead and pointing at the viewer. It was its placement on World War I recruiting posters (with the phrase "I Want You For the U.S. Army" beneath it) that truly solidified Uncle Sam as the personification of the United States.

Afterwards, the image was used on the cover of Leslie's Weekly in July 1916 with the title "What Are You Doing For Preparedness?" underneath the image. The image has been used in recruiting and is consistently used in modern culture. Besides appearing as a comic book hero for Quality and DC comics, Uncle Sam is also used in imagery for the New York Yankees. The Major League Baseball team uses Uncle Sam's hat in their team logo, where it sits on top of a bat that forms the vertical line of the "K" in "Yankees." Fans often wear Uncle Sam hats to games or events promoting the team.

The rock group Grateful Dead featured a skeletal Uncle Sam as one of their symbols, referring back to their song U.S. Blues, "Red and white, blue suede shoes, I'm Uncle Sam, how do you do?" Most recently, the image of Uncle Sam was featured prominently in the 2007 film Across the Universe. A film based around the songs of the Beatles, a larger than life Uncle Sam reaches out from a Vietnam recruiting poster to grab a young man responding to his draft notice during the song, "I Want You."

Other personifications of the United States previously were Brother Jonathan and Columbia. Brother Jonathan was regarded as the personification of the United States as early as 1776. "Brother Jonathan" was a term used by British Loyalists to describe Revolutionary Patriots. Believed to be based on the Governor of Connecticut, Jonathan Turnbull, the image of Brother Jonathan soon appeared in political cartoons and posters. Very similar to Uncle Sam, he is pictured with a top hat, a coat with tails and striped pants. Gradually during the Civil War, Brother Jonathan was replaced by Uncle Sam and Columbia. By the end of the war, Uncle Sam had been firmly adopted.

Columbia was a name for America taken from African American poet Phillis Wheatley. The first to describe the new nation as the goddess Columbia in 1775, the image stuck, however it wasn't the first time America had viewed herself as a woman. In the sixteenth century, images of America as a woman showed her to be a half-clothed Native American, sometimes as a "savage cannibal woman" or "a regal Indian queen." She was the rebellious princess next to her staunch mother, Britain. As America began to develop, its inhabitants became tired of the Native American image personifying their country. Wheatley's Columbia, a Caucasian goddess, became the new favorite.

Usually portrayed as a woman from the Roman Republic, she wore a white toga, often wore a helmet and was accompanied by the flag, the eagle and documents such as the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

However, of all these images the United States has associated itself with, Uncle Sam is the one that has remained constant. Though these other two persons have been abandoned, they remain fascinating images to study. In a sense, they document the journey of America -- the changing persons representing a changing country.

United States nicknamed Uncle Sam, History.Com

Brother Jonathan, Sonofthesouth.net

Miss America: The Image of Columbia, Learner.org

U.S. Blues

lyrics, Grateful Dead