1

Paul Bunyan

Image: Abby Savage

Paul Bunyan , the colossal lumberjack of American folklore, is said to have cleared forests from the Northeast to the Pacific Northwest. With his blue ox, Babe , he performed incredible feats of strength, like carving out the Grand Canyon just by dragging his axe behind him, and creating the Great Lakes with his footprints.

Originating in oral traditions among lumberjacks, Bunyan’s exaggerated exploits gained momentum with the American westward expansion during the 19th century and soon became deeply ingrained in the popular imagination.

2

Johnny Appleseed

Image: Aarón Blanco Tejedor

Born John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed wandered the American frontier planting apple trees and spreading goodwill in the early 19th century. A devout Christian, he became a folk hero for his kindness, environmentalism, and pioneering spirit.

Contrary to the popular image of Johnny Appleseed randomly scattering apple seeds, he was a skilled nurseryman who meticulously planted apple tree nurseries. Each nursery was carefully fenced to shield the saplings from livestock and wildlife. After establishing these nurseries, he entrusted them to neighbors but revisited them periodically.

3

Pecos Bill

Image: JosephHershMedia

Pecos Bill , a fictional cowboy raised by coyotes in the wilds of Texas, became a larger-than-life figure known for taming cyclones and roping tornadoes. His adventures, first popularized in the early 20th century, embody the frontier spirit and Texas mythology, blending humor with tales of rugged individualism.

Among his many tales, one credits him with creating the Gulf of Mexico . According to legend, during a severe drought in Texas, Pecos Bill lassoed a storm cloud in California and brought it to Texas. The resulting deluge caused extensive flooding, ultimately forming the Gulf.

4

Davy Crockett

Image: Joseph Corl

Davy Crockett , known as the "King of the Wild Frontier," was a real-life frontiersman later turned politician whose exploits were mythologized even during his lifetime. Born in East Tennessee, he quickly gained fame for his sharp hunting skills and captivating storytelling.

During his time in the U.S. Congress, he staunchly opposed many of President Andrew Jackson’s policies, particularly the Indian Removal Act, and championed the rights of small landowners. Crockett’s life ended with valor at the Battle of the Alamo , solidifying his folk legend as a symbol of courage and patriotism. His legacy remains an enduring part of American history.

5

Calamity Jane

Image: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen

Martha Jane Canary, better known by her alias Calamity Jane, was a frontierswoman and scout famed for her sharpshooting skills and daredevil exploits. During her youth, she stepped up to provide for her large family, taking on various jobs, from ox team driver to scout for Fort Russell. Eventually, she embraced the rough and adventurous lifestyle that made her a legend.

Despite her fearsome reputation, Calamity Jane was compassionate and often helped those in need. Her adventures in the Wild West alongside figures like Wild Bill Hickok cemented her status as a legend of the American frontier.

6

Molly Pitcher

Image: Garry T

Molly Pitcher, the nickname given to Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, became famous for her bravery during the American Revolutionary War. Although several historical figures are known by this moniker for similar deeds, Mary Ludwig Hays distinguished herself during the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778, where she served as a water carrier for the soldiers.

When her husband, an artilleryman in the Continental Army, fell to enemy fire, she took his place, swabbing and loading the cannon with such bravery and determination that she earned a commendation from George Washington.

7

Daniel Boone

Image: Scott Longerbeam

Daniel Boone was a legendary frontiersman and explorer who blazed trails through the Appalachian Mountains and into Kentucky. Born in 1734, Boone became famous for his expert hunting and survival skills, as well as his role in establishing the Wilderness Road, a trail that facilitated westward migration through the Cumberland Gap.

After serving as a militia officer during the Revolutionary War, he was briefly taken in by the Shawnees in the Northeastern Woodlands. After a few years, he returned and continued to help protect the Kentucky settlements.

8

Buffalo Bill

Image: Judy Beth Morris

William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a legendary figure of the American West, known for his Wild West shows that toured the United States and Europe. Born in 1846, Cody was a skilled buffalo hunter, Army scout, and showman who brought cowboy skills and frontier life to audiences worldwide.

He earned his nickname after the Civil War by providing Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat, hunting record numbers of the animal. He even engaged in hunting competitions with his partner, Bill Comstock. His legendary figure has been frequently portrayed in film and television, especially during the height of the Western genre in the 1960s.

9

Wild Bill Hickok

Image: Pablò

James Butler Hickok, famously known as Wild Bill Hickok, was a legendary figure of the American Old West. Born in 1837, Hickok gained fame as a skilled marksman, gambler, and lawman.

Though his exploits were certainly exaggerated by the outlandish tales he told about himself, he was involved in several notorious gunfights during his life. Most notably, he dueled with Davis Tutt, a local gambler with whom he had various disagreements, particularly over their mutual affection for the same woman.

10

John Henry

Image: Lucio Patone

John Henry was a legendary steel-driving man whose man-against-machine tale epitomized the strength and resilience of the American worker. An African American freedman, his dangerous job involved hammering steel drills into rocks to create holes for explosives used to blast open railroad tunnels.

According to the legend, John Henry's prowess was tested in a race against a steam-powered drill. He won the race but tragically died after victory, hammer in hand when his heart gave out from the immense physical stress.

1

Taxation without representation - District of Columbia

Image: Jen Theodore

The DMV in Washington, D.C., has featured "Taxation Without Representation" on the city's license plates since the late 1990s. This is because people living in D.C. don't have a voting representative in Congress , so, yes, they're taxed without representation.

The reason for this dates back to when the Founders of the country decided that the yet-to-be-built Federal City, located on the Potomac, would operate above and beyond any regional, state, or city politics, remaining completely neutral regarding the laws being created. Therefore, there is no representative in Congress.

2

The Last Frontier - Alaska

Image: Elijah Macleod

There is not much mystery as to why license plates in Alaska feature the nickname "The Last Frontier." Once, the frontier was the continental West. Once the West was won, Alaska became the last frontier.

Along with this nickname, the license plate also features a flag with stars, which represent the Big Dipper and Polaris (the North Star). They respectively symbolize strength and Alaska's northern location.

3

Constitution State - Connecticut

Image: Davlat Radjabov

While some people might think that the nickname showcased on the Connecticut license plates is about the document that laid the groundwork for American democracy, the truth is different.

"The Constitution State" in this case refers to a set of local government rules from around the year 1639, called the Fundamental Orders. Similar? Yes, but not the same.

4

The First State - Delaware

Image: Liam Matthews

"The First State," the nickname showcased on Delaware’s license plates, references a fact that the state is proud to boast— as it should: it was the first state to ratify the US Constitution before any other state on December 7, 1787.

The nickname wasn't official until a first-grade class made the suggestion in 2002. As it sometimes happens, kids get it before everybody else.

5

Land of Lincoln - Illinois

Image: Richard Hedrick

Another proud statement showcased on the state’s license plates is printed on every Illinois plate: "Land of Lincoln" refers to the fact that, even though he was born in Kentucky, Honest Abe lived in the state capital, Springfield, from 1837 to 1861.

The 1954 plates were the first to feature this nickname, which continues to be used today.

6

The Crossroads of America - Indiana

Image: Tracy Adams

The state of Indiana has numerous interstates crossing its borders, namely I-65, I-69, I-70, and I-74 , and the nickname on its license plate is a direct reference to this. Actually, as it happens in many instances, this nickname is the state’s motto, which became official in 1937.

The current plate design, which features one of the covered bridges the state is known for, is a little cartoonish but has more character.

7

Sportsman’s Paradise - Louisiana

Image: Tim Mossholder

Some states have had the clever idea of advertising and promoting their features on their license plates. Cars bearing these signs travel all over the country, making them a perfect advertising vessel.

Such is the case for Louisiana, which is a region abundant with spots to fish and hunt . Its license plate is inscribed with one of the state’s nicknames: "Sportsman’s Paradise."

8

Support Wildlife - Maine

Image: Ashes Sitoula

Another state that attracts visitors with its natural diversity and makes good use of its license plates to promote this is Maine, with its "Support Wildlife" plate. This slogan not only invites people to visit but also advocates for environmental protection. This double function is a great use of space and resources, and it should be copied by other states’ license plates.

9

The Spirit of America - Massachusetts

Image: Beng Ragon

If there is no space for the full motto, why not go with an abbreviation, right? At least that was the reasoning for the good people of Massachusetts. Along with a patriotic color scheme, Massachusetts's license plate features the slogan "The Spirit of America." The phrase is a shortened version of the state's former motto: "The Spirit of Massachusetts is the Spirit of America."

10

Unbridled Spirit - Kentucky

Image: Jen Theodore

The last entry on our list goes to Kentucky and its poetic motto proudly showcased on its license plates. According to local authorities, " Kentucky is a place where spirits are free to soar and big dreams can be fulfilled . We relish competition and cherish our champions for their willingness to push beyond conventional boundaries to reach new heights of success."

In any case, this beautiful statement adorns the license plates of many Kentuckians.

1

A meatpacker from Troy sparks a nickname

In 1812, while the country was at war with Britain again, soldiers stationed near Troy, New York, needed to eat. A local businessman named Samuel Wilson, who ran a meatpacking company with his brother Ebenezer along the Hudson River, won a contract to supply barrels of beef and pork to the army.

Wilson stamped every barrel "U.S." for United States, but around town he was already known by a friendlier name, Uncle Sam, for being an honest and generous employer to the many workers who passed through his docks. Soldiers saw the initials, heard the nickname, and started joking that their rations came courtesy of "Uncle Sam" himself. What started as a joke stuck, and local newspapers quickly picked it up, marking the first step in Uncle Sam’s story.

2

A patchwork figure before the patriotic suit

Before Uncle Sam wore his familiar star-spangled coat, he looked more like any other fisherman.

The earliest known drawing of him appeared in the New York Lantern in 1852 , decades after Samuel Wilson first earned the nickname back in Troy. In that cartoon, he had no top hat, no red and white stripes, nothing close to what you would recognize today. Early illustrators dressed him in rustic, everyday clothes, sometimes patchwork, because he was meant to represent the common American, not a polished symbol of government sitting in an office. It took years of cartoonists experimenting, borrowing bits from other figures and dropping others, before Uncle Sam’s look settled into anything close to consistent.

3

The Civil War gives him his iconic aesthetic

During the Civil War, Uncle Sam needed to do more than represent the country. He needed to rally it. Editorial cartoonists of the era, most famously Thomas Nast at Harper’s Weekly , reworked him into someone sharper and more commanding , trading the rustic patchwork look for a tall, lean man with a top hat and striped trousers.

Nast used Uncle Sam to speak for the Union cause and to argue for keeping the country unified, at a time when families followed the war through newspaper cartoons the way we now follow headlines on our phones. This version of Uncle Sam, dignified rather than folksy, laid the groundwork for the figure who would later stare down at millions of Americans from recruitment posters, decades before that poster was ever drawn.

4

Uncle Sam becomes a tool of political satire

By the turn of the 20th century, Uncle Sam had developed a new side: he could make a political argument without saying a word.

As the United States expanded overseas after the Spanish-American War, cartoonists used his body, clothes, and size to debate what that expansion meant. Around 1900, in J.S. Pughe’s cartoon "Declined with thanks," an oversized Uncle Sam gets measured for an ever bigger suit, a visual joke about the country’s growing territorial expansion. The joke was visual, but the issue was serious. Uncle Sam had become a flexible political weapon, useful both to supporters and critics of American power. The character could literally grow as the nation grew, making him ideal for newspaper satire.

5

A British general points the way first

Here’s the twist most people don’t know about: That famous pointing finger, the one every American associated with Uncle Sam, was not originally American at all.

In 1914, as Britain entered World War I, illustrator Alfred Leete created a recruitment poster showing Lord Kitchener, Britain’s Secretary of State for War, pointing directly at the viewer above the words: "Britons: Join Your Country’s Army." The poster ran on magazine covers and street corners across the country and became one of the most talked-about images of the war’s early days. A few years later, on the other side of the Atlantic, an American artist would study that same commanding pose and realize it was exactly what his own country needed to put on paper.

6

An artist paints himself into history

That American artist was James Montgomery Flagg, a well-known illustrator commissioned by the Committee for Public Information to create a recruitment poster for WWI in 1917.

The plan was simple: echo the Kitchener pose with an American face. There was just one problem: the model scheduled to sit for the painting never showed up that day. Rather than waste the afternoon, Flagg propped up a mirror in his studio and used his own reflection, adding a goatee and white hair to age himself into the role of Uncle Sam. The result, "I Want You for U.S. Army," turned out to be the defining image of Uncle Sam for generations, all because one artist got impatient and decided not to wait around for someone else to show up.

7

A single poster printed over four million times

Numbers rarely tell a full story, but this one comes close. Between 1917 and 1918, Flagg’s Uncle Sam poster was printed more than four million times, plastered across train stations, storefronts, and town squares nationwide, often right next to enlistment tables.

It pushed Americans to sign up for service, to buy Liberty Bonds, and to see the war as something that involved them personally, not just the soldiers overseas. Few pieces of American graphic design have ever reached that scale of distribution, and fewer still have stayed recognizable a century later. If you have ever seen a Halloween costume, a magazine cover, or a protest sign featuring that pointing finger, you have already seen Flagg's poster still at work.

8

Uncle Sam trades his rifle for a baseball bat

Not every wartime appearance of Uncle Sam involved a battlefield. Illustrators found plenty of other uses for his familiar face between 1917 and 1918, some of them surprisingly playful.

J.C. Leyendecker drew him swinging a baseball bat under the slogan "Get in the Game," nudging Americans toward the war effort through a sport nearly everyone already loved on weekend afternoons. Flagg himself created a gentler image of Uncle Sam with his arm around a horse, part of a campaign asking Americans to support the care of military animals overseas. These lighter, unexpected adaptations remind us that propaganda during that era was not only about urgency; it also leaned on familiarity and warmth to make its point stick.

9

Pearl Harbor brings the same face back

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the country needed a rallying image fast, and rather than starting from scratch, officials reached for something already proven.

Flagg’s 1917 interpretation was dusted off and reprinted by the millions once again, this time for WWII enlistment drives and home front civil defense campaigns. The same stern face that had once urged an earlier generation to sign up was now doing the job all over again for their sons, appearing on posters in recruiting offices, factories, and post offices nationwide. By the 1940s, he was more than a wartime recruiting figure. He was a shorthand symbol for the federal government and the country itself.

10

From wartime symbol to modern canvas

Uncle Sam did not retire once the World Wars ended. In the decades since, he has become something closer to a blank canvas that each generation paints over with its own concerns.

During the Vietnam era, protest artists twisted his familiar pose into pointed criticism of the very government he once represented so simply, using his own famous finger to accuse instead of recruit. Political cartoonists continue to reach for him today, whether the topic is an election, a policy debate, or a national controversy, counting on readers to instantly recognize who he stands for. Few American symbols have proven so adaptable, stretched and reshaped again and again across more than two centuries, yet somehow always recognizable the moment that pointing finger appears.