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The meat packer from Troy
Uncle Sam is generally traced to Sam Wilson, who packed meat in Troy, New York, and shipped rations to soldiers during the War of 1812. Every package had to carry the contractor's initials — Elbert Anderson, so E.A. — and the country of origin, U.S.
Most of what Wilson sent went to Greenbush, NY, where a lot of Troy men were stationed. They knew Samuel Wilson, and they knew he went by Uncle Sam. Asked where the rations came from, they said Uncle Sam. The joke spread through the ranks, and the name attached itself to the country.
Into print
On September 7, 1813 the Troy Post ran a war article containing one of the earliest printed uses of the name for the United States, with a footnote observing that this "cant name for our government has got almost as current as 'John Bull,'" and crediting the letters U.S. on government wagons for the coinage.
Two weeks later a Burlington, Vermont paper, calling for volunteers to defend private property against British troops, blamed the shortage of enlistments on the fact that "Uncle Sam, the now popular explication of the U.S. does not pay well."
How he came to look the way he does
Wilson died in 1854 and the name outlasted him. Depictions varied widely — during the Civil War he was drawn to resemble Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Nast's 1870s political cartoons established the striped trousers, tailcoat and tall hat, and borrowed features from Abraham Lincoln for the face.
The modern figure arrived in World War I with James Montgomery Flagg's recruitment poster: white hair, goatee, red-white-and-blue top hat, and the stare. Flagg could not be bothered to hire a model and used his own aged features instead. The poster — "I Want YOU For U.S. Army" — was printed more than four million times and remains a national icon over a century later.
Made official
Some historians have disputed the Wilson origin. Congress settled the matter in 1961 by resolution, saluting Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, New York as the progenitor of America's national symbol.
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