“Unraveling the Mystery: Why Uncle Sam Really Calls Americans ‘Yankees’—The Surprising History You Never Knew!”
In other words, when the particular lyrics “stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni” were added to the Yankee Doodle song, the author was essentially saying that colonists were such low class, moronic fools that they thought by sticking a simple feather in their hat, they were being extremely refined and fashionable.
In the end, there were possibly even hundreds of versions of Yankee Doodle in popular circulation during the American Revolution, some initially used by the British to mock their rebellious subjects. In turn, the Americans embraced the song, creating countless versions of their own and other times simply taking pride in the lyrics which were supposed to be mocking.
This brings us to October 19, 1781 when General Cornwallis formally surrendered to American and French forces at Yorktown, Virginia. Legend has it that, as a way to mock the defeated troops, famed French commandeer and hero of the American Revolution Marquis de Lafayette ordered the band to play “Yankee Doodle,” with the victorious soldiers singing along.
Expand for References
Panati, Charles, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, Harper & Row, New York, 1987
Elder, Natalie, Uncle Sam: The Man and the Meme, National Museum of American History, September 13, 2013, https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/uncle-sam-man-and-meme
Passey, Brian, What’s the Deal With Uncle Sam? The Spectrum, July 3, 2015, https://www.thespectrum.com/story/life/2015/07/03/what-the-deal-with-uncle-sam/29669929/
Walter Botts, the Man Who Modeled Uncle Sam’s Pose for J.M. Flagg’s Famous Poster, Vintage Everyday, August 31, 2016, https://www.vintag.es/2016/08/walter-botts-man-who-modeled-uncle-sams.html
The Female Form as Allegory, https://web.archive.org/web/20191023185114/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/LIBERTY/origins.html
Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner – Two Coasts, Two Perspectives, Thomas Nast Cartoons, https://web.archive.org/web/20160305182430/http://thomasnastcartoons.com/selected-cartoons/uncle-sams-thanksgiving-dinner-two-coasts-two-perspectives/
Brother Jonathan, Encyclopedia Britannica, https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Brother-Jonathan/318130#:~:text=The%20origin%20of%20the%20term,consulting%20him%20on%20special%20problems.
Tensley, Brandon, Meet Brother Jonathan, the Predecessor to Uncle Sam, Smithsonian Magazine, September/October 2023, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meet-brother-jonathan-the-predecessor-to-uncle-sam-180982818/
Braun, Adee, Before America Got Uncle Sam, it Had to Endure Brother Jonathan, Atlas Obscura, July 4, 2019, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/brother-jonathan-uncle-sam
