The U.S. nickname "Uncle Sam" is introduced - September 7th, 1813

On this day in 1813, the Troy Post newspaper in New York made the first published reference to the nickname Uncle Sam. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that wants you to learn more about history.
I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking at how the

(00:22):
United States wound up being called Uncle Sam. We'll also
get to know the national symbols that Uncle Sam replaced,
and will explore the claim that he was actually based
on a real life person. The day was September seven,

(00:45):
eighteen thirteen. The Troy Post newspaper in New York made
the first published reference to the nickname Uncle Sam. It
appeared in an article about the ongoing War of eighteen
twelve and was used to personify the United States. The
author referred to the name as a trendy new term

(01:05):
for the government and explained its origin, saying, quote the
letters U s on the government wagons, et cetera, are
supposed to have given rise to it. A couple of
weeks later, a newspaper in Burlington, Vermont, also made reference
to the term in an article about a shortage of
American troops. It accounted for the low enlistment numbers by saying,

(01:28):
quote Uncle Sam. The now popular explication of the US
does not pay well. The letters U S on military
supplies clearly gave rise to the nickname, but many believe
Uncle Sam also had a real life counterpart. Samuel Wilson
was a prominent meatpacker from Troy, New York, who had

(01:49):
been contracted by the U. S. Army to supply the
troops with meat rations. His company delivered barrels of beef
stamped with the letters US to designate them as government property.
According to popular legend, the men who loaded the delivery
wagons and even some of the soldiers who received them,
weren't sure what US stood for. Keep in mind that

(02:11):
the nation was still fairly young at that point, so
the abbreviation wouldn't have been as widely used as it
is today. The men allegedly joked that the letters must
stand for Uncle Sam, a reference to the well liked
and jovial Samuel Wilson, a man whose beef they were hauling.
The local Troy newspaper picked up on the story, and

(02:33):
the moniker quickly spread as a nickname for the US government. However,
it's worth noting that contemporary articles like the one in
the Troy Post didn't mention Samuel Wilson is the inspiration
for the name. In fact, Wilson wouldn't be publicly linked
to the nickname until an eighteen thirty edition of the
New York Gazette. As a result, many historians question whether

(02:56):
Samuel Wilson really had anything to do with the nickname
at all. Either way, Uncle Sam became a well known
personification of the United States, though he wasn't the first one.
That honor belongs to Columbia, a female symbol usually depicted
in a toga and sometimes bearing a torch, kind of
like a precursor to Lady Liberty. You probably know Columbia

(03:20):
best today from the logo of Columbia Pictures, which is
certainly a downgrade from her original role. During the Revolutionary War,
Columbia was joined by another national icon, a lanky man
in stars and stripes clothing named Brother Jonathan. Many of
his physical traits were later used as a starting point

(03:41):
for illustrations of Uncle Sam, though Brother Jonathan was depicted
as younger and more clean shaven, so if you're keeping track,
Columbia's role is the symbol of the US was gradually
supplanted by Brother Jonathan, who was in turn replaced by
Uncle Sam. There was a period of time though, from
the early eighteen thirties to about eighteen sixty, when all

(04:03):
three figures were used somewhat interchangeably and sometimes even appeared
together in political cartoons. That finally changed in the late
eighteen sixties and early seventies, as Uncle Sam became the
go to representative of the United States among cartoonists. This
was especially true of the work of Thomas Nast, the

(04:23):
political cartoonist credited with designing the modern look of Santa
Claus and the animal mascots of both the Democratic and
Republican parties. Nast popularized the image of Uncle Sam during
the late nineteenth century and is responsible for adding many
of the features we associate with the character today, including
his pointy white beard and his star spangled suit. But

(04:46):
it was illustrator James Montgomery Flag who created perhaps the
best known image of Uncle Sam. You know the one,
The portrait of a steely eide Sam wearing a white
top hat and a blue suit and pointing straight ahead
at the viewer. The famous image first appeared on the
cover of Frank Leslie's Illustrated newspaper in nineteen sixteen under

(05:07):
the title what are you doing for preparedness. One year later,
it appeared again on a World War One recruitment poster,
along with the words I want you for the U. S. Army.
That publicity campaign proved so successful that the government also
used it as a recruitment tool during the Second World War.

(05:28):
For most people, Flagg's well known portrait and the various
captions assigned to it are the first thing they think
of when they hear the name Uncle Sam. For many, though,
the story of Samuel Wilson is the first thing that
comes to mind. His supposed connection to the name wasn't
widely circulated until after his death in eighteen fifty four,

(05:48):
but it wasn't long before the unsubstantiated story was being
asserted as fact all over the country. To this day,
the city of Troy proudly bills itself as the home
of Uncle Sam. And Arlington, Massachusetts, the city where Wilson
was born, has a memorial to its famous son in
the town center. A bronze relief depicts the life and

(06:10):
work of Samuel Wilson, alongside a human size statue of
an elderly Uncle Sam, complete with his trademark tailcoat and
top hat. Public assertions like that may seem a bit unjustified,
considering we don't actually know if the Wilson Uncle Sam
connection is true, but consider this. In nineteen sixty one,

(06:32):
Congress adopted a resolution that officially recognized Samuel Wilson as
the origin of the nickname. That joint resolution reads as
follows 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. So,

(06:56):
whether true or not, as far as the federal government
is concerned, Ammuel Wilson is the original Uncle Sam. Although
the characters started out strictly as a symbol of the U.
S Government, Uncle Sam is now also used to represent
the American people and the nation as a whole. He
still pops up in plenty of political cartoons, some flattering,

(07:18):
some not, and he's often referenced at sporting events and
protest rallies both in the US and abroad. He continues
to be evoked as a patriotic ideal and pop culture
as well in Marvel comic books and movies. The original
Captain America's costume has the same stars and stripes motif
as what Uncle Sam wears, and the superhero of the

(07:40):
Falcon who later inherits the mantle of Captain America is
actually named Sammuel Wilson, and yes he's an uncle too.
I'm Gay Bluesier and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. You can
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(08:03):
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if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to
send them my way at this Day at I heart
media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,
and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back
here again tomorrow for another day in History class