The late 1800s and early 1900s were the heyday of the popular magazine. Collier’s, Leslie’s, and the Saturday Evening Post were some of the more circulated magazines that featured popular opinion and news articles of the day. And, since putting photographs in print was still a novelty, the magazines hired graphic artists who generated images that captured the public’s attention (and dollar). In many cases, the artists became somewhat public celebrities themselves, earning good money and large followings. For example, Norman Rockwell and Charles Dana Gibson became rather well known for their art and artistic voices.
One of the most famous artists of the period was one James Montgomery Flagg. You know him best most likely as the man who created the famous “I Want You!” poster featuring the character Uncle Sam. We all know that character and how he is dressed in patriotic colors and a top hat, a thin man with a goatee and a grim face, a bony, almost accusatory finger pointing at the person looking at the poster.
Flagg created the character to accompany a story in one of the magazines about American preparedness (or lack thereof) during World War I. You see, the US didn’t take part in the first three years of that war; we didn’t join the fight on the side of the Allied Powers until the spring of 1917. When we did decide to enter the war, a rapid mobilization of personnel and materiel needed to be accomplished. Flagg’s commission for the magazine was to create an image that would speak to the nation’s need for everyone’s help in “making the world safe for democracy,” as President Woodrow Wilson put it.
So, Flagg wanted to embody the nation with the Uncle Sam image. The problem was–whom could he use as a model? He asked one of his elderly neighbors, a broad-shouldered gentleman with a long, bony finger, to act as the body’s model. That part was fine for Flagg. But the man’s face was all, well, wrong for the art. Flagg tried to show the man what he wanted, but it was no use. The man’s face was too round and not, well, righteously angry enough for the drawing Flagg had in mind.
Then he had a brainstorm.
And the resulting artwork became one of the most iconic posters in American History. The US Government War Department procured the rights to the picture to reproduce it as propaganda, to use it to do things like sell war bonds at home and encourage people to join the armed forces. There was something about that bony finger pointing at the viewer that demanded action, but it was the face, the grim determination that most Americans felt in joining the fight that really made Flagg’s poster speak to Americans then and now.
Because of the success of his artwork, Flagg was, for a time, the highest paid illustrator in the United States.
And whom did Flagg find to be the model for the determined Uncle Sam, the one that our enemies didn’t want to mess with?
Why, the model he chose was himself.
The Rest of the Story 