It was on this day in 1813 that the United States of America got its famous nickname, Uncle Sam. So who was this Uncle Sam? If you were under the impression that this stern elderly man with white hair and a goatee beard was a snobbish aristocrat, then now might be a good time to debunk that myth.
According to popular belief, the name was first used to refer to Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, New York. Wilson supplied meat to the United States army in 1812. He would pack the meat into barrels marked ‘US Army’. When one of Wilson’s employees was asked what ‘US’ stood for, he jokingly replied that it stood for Uncle Sam, the meat packer.
This story made its appearance in a local newspaper in 1813 that was unaware how the name would have a prominent role in shaping the history of the nation. It soon gained widespread acceptance as the ‘nickname’ of the United States of America.
Political cartoonist Thomas Nast was the man who first conceptualised the image of Uncle Sam. He later added the white beard and stars-and-stripes to his clothes.
In the 1860s and 1870s illustrators began popularising this iconic image. However, it was the image created by artist James Montgomery Flagg who painted the tall top hat and the blue jacket, that became best known. During World War I Uncle Sam became a propaganda image for the US Army.
The image was first used in Leslie’s Weekly in 1916 with the title “What are you doing for preparedness?” Its most famous appearance was in the army recruiting poster where Uncle Sam points straight at the viewer and asks, “I want you for the US Army”. The term ‘Uncle Sam’ soon became the very personification of America to the extent that during World War II the German intelligence agency codenamed America as Samland.
Be it a pit truth or pure legend, in 1961 the Congress gave official credit to Samuel Wilson as the progenitor of the American national ‘symbol’ of Uncle Sam.