_MENTOR GRAVURES_
VACANT-LOT GARDENING--Enterprise promoted by the Bureau of Education ·
A BOYS’ CORN CLUB--County Agent Giving Instruction · EXHIBIT OF WORK OF
BUREAU OF FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC COMMERCE · IMMIGRATION STATION OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, HONOLULU--Japanese Immigrants Awaiting Examination
· EQUIPMENT OF A POSTAL MOTOR-TRUCK ROUTE · DISABLED SOLDIERS LEARNING
TO WEAVE RUGS AT AN ARMY HOSPITAL
On an April day in 1865, a poor old colored woman was walking through
the streets of Richmond wringing her hands and moaning, “Oh, Sam’s
dead; Sam’s dead!” “What Sam’s dead, Aunty?” asked a passerby. “Oh,
Lord, Uncle Sam!” It was the death of Abraham Lincoln for which that
faithful heart was grieving. He was her Uncle Sam, the representative
in human form of America, particularly of the Government at Washington,
that mid-point of the strong, and protection of the weak. Yet after all
she missed the great idea that whoever dies and whoever lives, Uncle
Sam is eternal; for Uncle Sam is the American people governing itself.
He is the emblem of the force and courage and resolution of the United
States of America.
_The Birth of Uncle Sam_
Among the names by which American heroes and popular figures have
been called, how did Uncle Sam come to be adopted as the national
denominator? As well ask why Americans were called Yankees, long
before the Revolution, or why “Yanks” has been the name applied by
Allied soldiers to the forces of the United States in the European
battlefields, and has been accepted by regiments from North and South
alike. As well try to run down the first use of “Brother Jonathan,” in
much the same sense as that in which we now employ “Uncle Sam.” Learned
men and some of the unlearned have delved deep to find the origin of
the term Uncle Sam, and the significance of his out-of-style clothes.
One school of these explorers has presumed to trace Uncle Sam back to
an obscure Samuel Wilson, who during the War of 1812 was engaged in a
government contract for beef and pork to feed the United States army.
Nobody mentioned this yarn until thirty years later, when Jack Frost in
his _Book of the Navy_ gave it currency, without stating where he found
what he himself calls “a silly joke.” Frost asserts that from casks
marked “U. S.” by Samuel Wilson, the idea was taken by the soldiers,
and that gradually it spread through the army and the nation.
[Illustration: AN EARLY PORTRAYAL OF UNCLE SAM
A reproduction of the title page of the first illustrated comic paper
in the United States, 1846]
The only facts that can be ascertained on this subject are that in 1813
there was a firm of meat packers at Troy, in which Samuel Wilson was
a partner. Then that on September 7, 1813, the Troy _Post_ printed an
article containing the expression “Loss upon loss, and no ill luck …
except what lights upon UNCLE SAM’S shoulders.” A note in the newspaper
goes on to say “This cant name for our government has got almost as
current as ‘John Bull.’ The letters ‘U. S.’ on the government wagons,
etc., are supposed to have given rise to it.” A month later another
paper commented on the number of deserters in the army, adding “The
pretence is, that _Uncle Sam_, a now popular explication of the U. S.,
does not pay well.”
Three or four years later, other newspapers, who appeared to have no
knowledge of Samuel Wilson, made the far more probable explanation
that the term Uncle Sam was simply taken from the letters “U. S.”
on soldiers’ caps and knapsacks. Even the Indians accepted the new
term, and when President Madison was at the northern front asked the
privilege “to shake hands with Uncle Sam.”[A]
[A] Note--We have the word of one searcher that as early as 1807 a
regiment of Light Dragoons was raised whose initials, “U. S. L. D.,” on
wagons and accouterment were waggishly interpreted to mean “Uncle Sam’s
Lazy Dogs.”
Uncle Sam’s clothes, like the Quaker dress, were not invented to be
humorous, but as the fashionable costume of the period when Quakers’
and Uncle Sam’s began to appear. Trousers with straps under the
insteps were still worn down to fifty years ago. In the days when the
striped cotton trousers of the French soldiers began to drive out the
old-fashioned knee breeches, Uncle Sam came by his lower protection
naturally. The broad-brimmed beaver hat, till very recently, could
be seen on the heads of wealthy Quaker bankers in Philadelphia. The
star-spangled coats and correctly flag-striped trousers are of course
the inventions of later patriotic times.
[Illustration: SAFEGUARDING IMMIGRATION