Who is Uncle Sam?


Uncle Sam is a national personification of tje American government or the United States in general, which allegedly came into use during the War of 1812 and was supposedly named for Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, New York.  Its actual origin is unknown.  Uncle Sam is a manifestation of popular patriotic sentiment.  

The first use of Uncle Sam in a formal publication (as distinct from newspapers) was in the 1816 book 'The Adventures of Uncle Sam in Search After His Lost Honour' by Frederick Fidfaddy.  An Uncle Sam is mentioned as early as 1775 in the original 'Yankee Doodle' lyrics of the Revolutionary War.  It is unknown about whether this reference is to Uncle Sam as a metaphor for the US or to an actual person named Sam.  The lyric celebrate the military efforts of the ascendent nation, besieging the British at Boston;
Old Uncle Sam come there to change
Some pancakes and some onions
For 'lasses cakes, to carry home
To give his wife and young ones.

The term Uncle Sam is reputedly derived from Samuel Wilson due to his part in supplying rations for the soldiers during the War of 1812. There was a requirement at the time for contractors to stamp their name and where the rations came from onto the food they were sending. Wilson's packages were labeled "E.A – US." When someone asked what that stood for, a coworker joked and said, "Elbert Anderson (the contractor) and Uncle Sam," referring to Sam Wilson, though it actually stood for United States. Doubts have been raised as to this being the source of the term, as the claim did not appear in print until 1842. Additionally, the earliest reference to the term that has been found is from 'Yankee Doddle' in 1775, predating Wilson's contract with the government. As early as 1835, Brother Jonathan made a reference to Uncle Sam, implying that they symbolised different things: Brother Jonathan - the personification of New England, and occasionally the US and Capitalism as a whole,  was the country itself, while Uncle Sam was the government and its power.
Brother Jonathon
By the 1850s, the names Brother Jonathan and Uncle Sam were being used nearly interchangeably, to the point that images of what had previously been called "Brother Jonathan" were being called "Uncle Sam". Similarly, the appearance of both personifications varied wildly. For example, one depiction of Uncle Sam in 1860 showed him looking like Benjamin Franklin, while a contemporary depiction of Brother Jonathan looks more like the modern version of Uncle Sam, except for its lack of a goatee.
However, Uncle Sam did not get a standard appearance, even with the effective abandonment of Brother Jonathan near the end of the Civil War, until the well-known recruitment image of Uncle Sam was created by James Flagg, inspired by a British recruitment poster showing Lord Kitchener in a similar pose. It was this image more than any other that set the appearance of Uncle Sam: the elderly man with white hair and a goatee, wearing a white top hat with white stars on a blue band, a blue tail coat, and red and white striped trousers.
Flagg's famous recruitment poster
Lord Kitchener's recruitment poster
















The image of Uncle Sam was shown publicly for the first time, according to some, in a picture by Flagg on the cover of the magazine 'Leslie's weekly'  on July 6, 1916, with the caption 'What Are You Doing for Preparedness?' More than four million copies of this image were printed between 1917 and 1918.


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