Uncle Sam can be recognised by

• a goatee beard• tall hat with stars and stripes band• gaunt expression• characteristic shoes and• tight trousers.

He can provide the formidable presence with a wily option. He is half icon, half huckster.

mainly advertising

 

01. Uncle Sam and John Bull purchase Japanese Neutrality. German, Neue Gluhlichter, 1904.

02. Minneapolis Journal, November 03 1903 Spritely Sam administers his own medecine to the Russian Tsar.

03. Opper at the New York American. Uncle Sam preens at the importance of his new world role. The other countries come running. Neat selection of national archetypes.

04. The GOP (Republicans) in unpatriotic mood humiliating Uncle Sam and boosting the irresponsibilities of the Trusts. LIFE, Bradford. 1904 Feather, Coal and Peanut trusts.

05. The South African military leader prostrating himself at the 1904 St Louis exhibition in his trekker gear while the Sam sits aloft all knobbly knees and lordly gestures. Nicely composed for the column structure of the illustrated newspaper, here, Germany, Lustige Blatter.

06. Sam exerts his will while warning his European allies off his spheres of influence (Hawaii and the Philippines). Judge Magazine US 1904, and a fine visual approximation of the Imperial Urge.

07. Dutch satiricial magazine Amsterdammer, 1904 and a lacklustre concept of a hands off to Colombia and a gathering embrace for Panama. However the figure drawing suggests a sort of Rotoscope machine so accurate are the articulations of the body of Sam.

08. Sam as proud parent - Panama again. Minneapolis Jounal 1904. Showman and crook. No wonder the Infink chortles.

09.Another version of Sam's conuct in Latin America, the rebuff to Colombia and the cosetting of the new infant, Panama.German Kladderdatsch 1904. Odd coat and shoes borrowed from Little Titch, the Music Hall Performer. The Ten Million Note Sausage is a bribe for pokier dogs. Dame South America is confused as the bribe causes her dogs to scrap.

10. Freeman's Journal and a dowdy concept as old as the hills (the stalking horse, the terror of the seen and the manipulations of the unseen. Yet it is useful to have Sam and Bull in the same frame, fat and thin, horizontal and vertical.The Panama Canal as brackish river.

11.A no-nonsense sam gets down to the work of digging the Panama canal with no anticipated impediments. The hint of profitable cargo puffs on the horizon. Odd convention of recording issues on piles of cleared vegetation. Not terribly convincing. Minneapolis Journal again.

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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