The remarkable image of a person to a nation

          I’m talking about an image that marked the powerful nation, from it’s unexpected happenings in United States history, the image is of Samuel Wilson a meat packer from Troy, New York, that turns out be later called as Uncle Sam. It all started in 1813, in the midst of the War of 1812. This period, Wilson is the one who stamped the barrels of beef with U.S for the United States. Because of this the soldiers begin to grub it as Uncle Sam’s. A local newspaper picked up the story and later begins to spread and then became the nickname for the U.S federal government.

        And about 1860’s one cartoonist named Thomas Nast began popularizing the Uncle Sam image. He is the one who improves the image by putting white beard and stars and stripes suit which most of us know till this day. He is also the one who popularized the image of modern Santa Claus, the imageof both Democratic and Republican party that time. This guy was so famous, because of his creative mind including in his editorial cartoon, which resulted into the downfall of William Tweed.

          Another version has made its way through the image of Uncle Sam is that of James Montgomery Flagg. In his version, he vision Uncle Sam as wearing a tall top hat with blue jacket pointing at the viewer. This image has been used in Leslie’s Weekly in July 1916 with the title “What are you doing for preparedness?” this is widely used in World War 1 first used as a recruiting poster. In 1961, U. S government recognized Uncle Sam as a progenitor of America’s national symbol. To this day the town of Troy in New York calls itself as the “Home of Uncle Sam”.

        

         

 Credits by: Google Images