Uncle Sam

Uncle Sam

Cultural figure.

Uncle Sam (with the same initials as United States) is a common national personification of the United States, depicting the federal government or the country as a whole.

In the Sherlock Holmes stories

The Valley of Fear (1914)

• McMurdo was "helping Uncle Sam to make dollars" i.e. counterfeiting (VALL 2521).

His Last Bow (1917)

• Altamont (Sherlock Holmes in disguise), a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut features and a small goatee beard, was compared to the caricatures of Uncle Sam (LAST 197).

Other Uncle Sams (characters)

Uncle Jeremy's Household (1887)

• Ethel Thurston was the youngest of Uncle Sam's children (UNCL 133).

Here, Uncle Sam is the short name for Uncle Samuel Thurston.

The Land of Mist (1926)

• The medium Tom Linden grumbled that sitters ruined his clairvoyance by feeding him guesses : "That's surely my Uncle Sam, and so forth" (LAND 2208).

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