Uncle Sam: We Want You

Clad in his American flag suit, Uncle Sam has long been popular as the personification of the United States. His federally-accepted origins date all the way back to the War of 1812, when a man named Samuel Wilson prepared provisions for soldiers and marked them with the label “U.S.” He meant it to stand for “United States,” but that wasn’t yet a popular abbreviation, so soldiers said the provisions came from “Uncle Sam.”

While this origin story has faded from public knowledge, Uncle Sam went on to become an instantly recognizable figure. He has appeared in posters and political cartoons as far back as 1852. During the American Civil War, his popularity began to grow, escalating even more through the late 1800s and into the pre-WWI years.

The most famous depiction comes from this 1917 WWI poster:

This image of Uncle Sam pointing directly at the viewer rolled off the printing presses over four million times from 1917 through 1918, making it synonymous with patriotic duty. Artist James Montgomery Flagg created it, commissioned by the Committee for Public Information (CPI).

As the story goes, Flagg had a model scheduled to sit for the painting, but the model never arrived, so he used his own reflection for the now iconic image. For the pose, he took inspiration from a 1914 British poster featuring Lord Kitchener pointing at the viewer and calling on them to join the army.

The Uncle Sam poster is a direct call to action: “We Want You!” to enlist in order to, as Woodrow Wilson declared to U.S. Congress, “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” Decades later, World War II propagandists turned to the same image to call for enlistment after the United States declared war against Japan in 1941.

Portrayals of Uncle Sam have varied greatly since the beginning. Authors, artists and organizations of radically different ideals have all used Uncle Sam to express their beliefs.