While many Americans can commonly recognize the iconic man pointing his finger and staring head on out of a poster with "I Want You for the United States Army" plastered underneath his body as Uncle Sam, few people actually know how Uncle Sam became so iconic.
It is a little-known fact that Uncle Sam's look was a combination of two other iconic American symbols, Yankee Doodle and Brother Johnathan. Yankee Doodle was a nickname for American Colonials that was used by the British and Brother Johnathan was a common, rural, American who was quite clever and used his wit and native intelligence to solve his problems. However, the name of Uncle Sam came from the more commonly known Samuel Wilson. Samuel Wilson was a businessman from Troy, New York and he won the contract to supply the soldiers with rations during the War of 1812. During the War, he stamped the barrels of meat with U.S. helping bring Uncle Sam to fruition and in 1961, Congress passed a resolution to name him the namesake of the iconic American symbol. The reason that Uncle Sam became such a symbol to rally behind during the War of 1812 is that there was a renewed sense of American Identity because of the war that had faded since the American Revolution and Uncle Sam was just the thing to help Americans band together.
A famous cartoonist that has frequently been mentioned when discussing American history is Thomas Nast, and in the same way, he helped make a fat Santa, and the current political party symbols popular he did the same with Uncle Sam. Using the symbol in his cartoons in the early 1870's Nast gave Sam his famous suit of stars and stripes, helping to create the modern version of the symbol we know today. His fame in present-day America is because of the use of his image in both World War One and World War Two. Nast's image was used on recruiting posters that became a part of the famed American propaganda of the time and today is still a symbol of America that people continue to rally behind.
Sources
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ah-unclesam/
Uncle Sam is a well known figure and he is on the same pedestal as smokey the beer to me. They both tried to do the same thing to the American people by getting them to be aware and act on whatever the issue at hand was. I thought it was interesting in how they came up with his name because I had previously not known it was after someone. I assumed it was just a regular American name and someone randomly chose it but I guess not. It's also interesting they chose an old looking man to recruit the americans to join the war and i think what difference in impact would it have made if they had a young 20 year old who was not an uncle recruiting them idk.
ReplyDeleteThe origins of iconic images or expressions like Uncle Sam are not always something people think about. It definitely seems that these things are created to convey a feeling that does not need to be fully understood for people to get what they are trying to say. Despite this, it's still interesting to learn about the history behind icons, and it's remarkable to think that a military contractor is the man behind Uncle Sam. You also mentioned that Thomas Nast helping to popularize Uncle Sam, but I wonder why he drew him the way he did? Obviously, I get the stars and stripes, but he does seem a bit unfriendly for someone trying to incite patriotism.
ReplyDelete