Cultural Focus: Uncle Sam

Uncle Sam is a national personification of the United States going back to the War of 1812. During the war Sam Wilson, a merchant from Troy, New York, received a contract to supply meat to the American army. He stamped the supplies with "US" and soon the soldiers jokingly referred to it as the initials of the meat supplier – "Uncle Sam", Uncle Samuel Wilson.

By 1820, illustrations of "Uncle Sam" as a national symbol were appearing in the newspapers and soon it became one of the most recognizable in the USA. The claim of Samuel Wilson to be recognized as the original Uncle Sam and the prototyte of the name was finally set by the 87^th United States Congres when it adopted the following resolution on September 15, 1961: "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".

Uncle Sam is usually drawn as a tall, elderly man with a stars and stripes top hat, a red, white, and blue morning coat, and striped pants. This style was originally popularized by cartoonist Thomas Nast and is now the universal image of the character. In recent years some cartoonists have drawn a more modernized and youthful version of Uncle Sam, although the distinctive top hat always remains.

Settling the Frontier

After the War of 1812, the nation managed to overcome many serious difficulties – now American stepped on the road of exploration prosperity and social progress. Most of them believed that expansion westward and southward was inevitable and divinely ordained – it was "manifested destiny" of American nation. Many Americans idealistically believed that westward expansion would extend American freedom and democracy, bringing the benefits of America's republican system to less fortunate people.

After the Louisiana Purchase the frontier was quickly marching to its western boundaries – between 1803 and 1853, the United States acquired all territory of the present continental limits (except for Alaska).

The first frontier states entered the Union between 1793 and 1803: Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio, but the far beyond the Mississippi. After the Lewis and Clark expedition thousands of pioneers settled near the navigable rivers of the west – the Ohio and the Mississippi, and in twenty years the settlements spread over the whole northwest territory.

Pioneers chose different ways to travel to the western frontier – they bought or built boats to get to the place by water, the groups of over sixty people traveled west in covered wagons – the wagon trains by land. Pioneers faced great difficulties of riving in wilderness and unknown environment; they often died of diseases or suffered malnutrition.

There also was a reverse side of the medal – trying to civilise the frontier settlers ruined the lives of well-ordered Indian civilization. In the south the frontier settlements carried with them slavery, in the north seekers of furs, gold and lumber spoiled the natural landscape in the name of progress and development.

Many settlers of the frontier in the north started as fur trappers, making living on fur trade. Early fur trappers exploited friendly Indian tribes; later pioneers monopolized fur trade through the organization of trading companies.

The fur-trading frontier in Oregon was followed by the mining frontiers in the mountains and cattle frontiers on the plains. Great Plains became the farmers' and merchants' frontier, where pioneer families cleared the land of trees and prairie grass, constructed cabins of logs and established their farms.

A special pattern of settlement was followed in California where gold was discovered in 1848. By the next year the news had spread eastward and thousands of fortune-seekers flooded in. They were called "forty-niners" (as California Gold Rush started in 1849), and many of them settled in California forever. The new settlers were to be fed, so the greatest wealth was actually found in supplying, feeding, and clothing the gold seekers. Numerous stores were opened to provide services to the miners, and soon the other boom – now agricultural – started.

The government tried to control the process of setting frontier lands, introducing different programs – there were grants for war veterans, until 1820 civilians could buy government land at $2 an acre, and this price was reduced later. As many settlers needed to borrow money, private credit systems developed together with banks and private investors. Railroads also received land from the government and sold it on credit.

By the middle of the 19^th century, many early frontier settlements developed into cities, some of them like Detroit, Chicago and Cincinnati became great manufacturing centers. Economic development gradually changed the American landscape – now canals, railroads, steamboats and telegraph miles linked together cities, towns and settlements that were hundreds and thousands of miles apart.