brother jonathan

Mascots. You gotta love 'em. They can make an intimidating team seem cuddly (Miami and its adorable dolphins), turn losers into lovable underdogs (Chicago Cubbies, anyone?), or make backwater minor-leaguers memorable (we've never seen the Montgomery Biscuits play, but we're fans on principle).


The Uncle Sam featured in the famous "I want YOU" recruitment posters for the U.S. Army for WWI.

So it's no wonder that countries capitalize on the phenomenon with mascots of their own. England has its bulldog, France has a beautiful warrior woman, and America ... well, America has a New York meat packer.

But you know him better as wacky, stilt-legged Uncle Sam. Allow us to explain.

Sam's club

Arguably America's most famous eccentric relative, Uncle Sam is a fairly recent addition to our national consciousness.

But that's not to say the United States didn't have its fair share of political personifications before Sam came along.

Lady Liberty was one of the earliest. Usually depicted draped in a toga and donning an elaborate headdress, she represented the blending of classical ideals and new world spirit.

Another early mascot, Brother Jonathan, served as the face of the common man. Appearing in countless political cartoons, plays, and novels, his character applied homespun wisdom, acerbic wit, and a generous dose of orneriness to both political issues and pop culture.

Don't Miss
Mental Floss: Quiz: Ex-presidential lives, legacies
Mental Floss: Photos politicians regret
Mental Floss: Great prison escapes
Mental Floss: Curses that do their job
Mental Floss: 10 reasons to love Teddy Roosevelt
Then came Uncle Sam, the famous face of U.S. Army recruitment campaigns.

And fittingly, he's an icon born out of a military contract. During the War of 1812, a meat packer from Troy, New York, named Samuel Wilson won the right to supply beef to the American troops.

Wilson (apparently more genial than your average butcher-slash-military contractor) was known to his neighbors as Uncle Sam. So when soldiers from the Troy area started spotting barrels of meat stamped with the initials "U.S.," they joked that the letters stood for Uncle Sam, rather than United States. Before long, even civilians were saying that "Uncle Sam was feeding the troops."

The phrase became common, and Sam-as-symbol made his debut in an 1838 political cartoon alongside Brother Jonathan. But, with his red stocking cap and conspicuously whisker-free face, ol' "U.S." didn't look much like the poster-boy we know today.

Earning his stripes (and stars)

By the time the Civil War started, Uncle Sam had become representative of a united federal government. That meant he had more resonance in the Union than Brother Jonathan, who'd become more associated with individualism.

Consequently, when the North won, so did Sam. In fact, over the course of the next two decades, Jonathan virtually disappeared from newspapers' editorial pages.

With Uncle Sam's new political symbolism came a new look. The nation desperate for leadership, he began to take on the characteristics of another famous icon, Abraham Lincoln.

Interestingly, this transformation is widely credited to 19th-century illustrator Thomas Nast, who's also responsible for our jolly, fat, red-suited image of Santa Claus as well as the use of the donkey and the elephant as political party symbols.

But Sam still had one last (extreme) makeover ahead of him. That came during World War I, when artist James Montgomery Flagg designed the famous "I want YOU" recruitment posters for the U.S. Army. In the process, he gave Uncle Sam a new face with a stern expression.

That signature mug, ironically, was made in Flagg's own image. In order to save the hassle and expense of hiring a model, Flagg decided to paint a self-portrait. The result was a national icon that's truly a cross-section of America -- incorporating the face of an artist, the style of a president, and the name of a New York meat packer. E-mail to a friend
OAK RIDGE (WATE) -- As a reporter for WNOX, Michael Grider has seen severe injuries before. But nothing could prepare him for the sight of his brother, Jonathan, 19, after he was brutally stabbed and his wallet and car stolen early Tuesday morning.

"This was the wound of the person who tried to kill my brother, dead. And I wasn't prepared for that," Michael said.

"The guy's got a dozen or more stab wounds on his body," Michael said. "I mean, his throat was slit."

Jonathan was flown to UT Medical Center. He hasn't been conscious to tell police or his family what happened but Michael believes the attack was not random.

"I think that whoever did this knows him and I don't think the motive was to take his car," Michael said. "To slit someone's throat, you have to touch someone. That's personal. That's personal to slit someone's throat and then to walk away and leave them bleeding for dead."

Jonathan works at a call center and gets off work around 1:30 a.m. Sometime between 1:30 and 2:30 a.m., police believe he was attacked in a courtyard between two office buildings off Broadway Avenue. He was able to make it to East Tennessee Avenue before collapsing in the street.

However, without his wallet or his car, it was difficult for police to identify him.

"He didn't have his ID. He was only able to tell emergency workers his first name and they couldn't understand his last name when he said it. So it was later in the morning, between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. when my mom first found out."

Michael says his family is staying strong and doing whatever they can to find who did this to his brother. "Justice will be paid one way or another." Two brothers accused of killing Wayne Doucette in his Sissiboo Road home during the Labour Day weekend will be back in court Oct. 22.

Aaron Scott Trask, 34, and his brother Jonathan David Trask, 22, both of Cornwallis Park, are charged with first-degree murder, robbery with violence and conspiracy to commit robbery.

Their lawyers were in court in Digby on Oct. 11, but arraignment of the brothers couldn't proceed because the Crown has yet to provide disclosure of its evidence to defence lawyers.

That disclosure was expected within days.

Police discovered the body of Doucette, 55, at his Doucetteville home just before noon on Sept. 1 after receiving a 9-1-1 call.

A 17-year-old girl faces the same charges and is scheduled for arraignment Nov. 1 in youth court. Her identity is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The girl and the two Trask brothers remain in custody.

A fourth person, Nathan Roger Tidd, 19, of Sandy Cove, is charged with robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. He is not in custody and is to be arraigned Nov. 1.
For the steamboat that crashed off the coast of Crescent City, California in 1865, see Brother Jonathan (steamer).
Brother Jonathan was a fictional character created to personify the entire United States, in the early days of the country's existence.

Brother Jonathan as drawn by Thomas NastIn editorial cartoons and patriotic posters, Brother Jonathan was usually depicted as a typical American revolutionary, with tri-cornered hat and long military jacket. Originally, from 1776 to 1783, "Brother Jonathan" was a mildly derisive term used by the Loyalists to describe the Patriots.

A popular folk tale about the origin of the term holds that the character derives from Jonathan Trumbull (1710-85), Governor of Connecticut. It is said that George Washington often uttered the words: "We must consult Brother Jonathan" when faced with a difficult question; however, that origin is doubtful, as neither man made reference to the story during their lifetimes and the first appearance of the story has been traced to the mid 1800s, long after their deaths.

The character was adopted by Americans from 1783 to 1815. During the War of 1812, the term "Uncle Sam" appeared. Uncle Sam appeared in newspapers from 1813 to 1815, and in 1816 it appeared in a book. Brother Jonathan was replaced by the female personification Columbia and the increasingly popular Uncle Sam. Indeed, the character can be seen as an intermediate step between Yankee Doodle and Uncle Sam as a representation of the everyday American.

However, Brother Jonathan, and variants of the name Jonathan continued to be used as slang references to Americans through the American Civil War. For example Johnny Reb meant a Confederate soldier, and a popular song was "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".