Uncle Sam

Uncle Sam

J.M. Flagg’s 1917 poster, based on the original British Lord Kitchener poster of three years earlier, was used to recruit soldiers for both World War I and World War II. Flagg used a modified version of his own face for Uncle Sam, and veteran Walter Botts provided the pose.

Uncle Sam is a national personification of the United States (US), with the first usage of the term dating from the War of 1812 and the first illustration dating from 1852. He is often depicted as a serious elderly white man with white hair and a goatee, with an obvious resemblance to Presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, and dressed in clothing that recalls the design elements of the flag of the United States—for example, typically a top hat with red and white stripes and white stars on a blue band, and red and white striped trousers.

Common folklore holds origins trace back to soldiers stationed in upstate New York, who would receive barrels of meat stamped with the initials U.S. The soldiers jokingly referred these initials as to naming the troops' meat supplier, (Uncle) Samuel Wilson of Troy, New York..

The 87^th United States Congress adopted the following resolution on September 15, 1961: "Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives that the Congress salutes Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, New York, as the progenitor of America's National symbol of Uncle Sam." Monuments mark his birthplace in Arlington, Massachusetts, and site of burial in Oakwood Cemetery, Troy, New York. Another sign marks "The boyhood home of Uncle Sam" outside his second home in Mason, NH. The first use of the term in literature is seen in an 1816 allegorical book, The Adventures of Uncle Sam in Search After His Lost Honor by Frederick Augustus Fidfaddy, Esq., also in reference to the aforementioned Samuel Wilson.

Earlier representative figures of the United States included such beings as "Brother Jonathan," used by Punch magazine. These were overtaken by Uncle Sam somewhere around the time of the Civil War. The female personification "Columbia" has seldom been seen since the 1920s.

The well-known "recruitment" image of Uncle Sam was created by James Montgomery Flagg, an illustrator and portrait artist best known for commercial art. 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. The image also was used extensively during World War II.

The 1864 song "U.S.G. A Song For The Times" by Dan D. Emmett refers to General Ulysses S. Grant as "Uncle Sam" in the Chorus: "Then U.S.G's the man for me, Three cheers for your old Uncle Sam!" Sheet music scans may be seen at the Library of Congress American Memory Lincoln website:

In addition to the appearance of Uncle Sam in politics, the character has also appeared as a comic book hero for Quality and then DC Comics. He is presented as the living embodiment of the United States and is the leader of the Freedom Fighters. There was also a short cartoon in the 1980s called "Uncle Sam's Adventures."

Furthermore, Uncle Sam appeared as a horror villain in the eponymously titled 1997 film, Uncle Sam. In this film, a veteran who died during Desert Storm rises from the dead to exact justice upon some teenagers who burned the American Flag on his grave.

Major League Baseball's New York Yankees feature Uncle Sam's hat in their team logo, where it sits atop a bat that forms the vertical line of the "K" in "Yankees". The hat is frequently used in imagery pertaining to the team, and fans often wear Uncle Sam hats to games or other functions.

In music, rock group Grateful Dead featured a skeletal Uncle Sam as one of the band's symbols. Uncle Sam, referred to in their song U.S. Blues, is one of the many elements that compose the band's "American mythology".

In the 2007 film Across the Universe, Uncle Sam comes to life and reaches out of his poster to grab Max into the U.S. army, while singing The Beatles' song "I want You."