The Forgotten Stories Behind America’s Founding Symbols

Many of the images we associate with early America were chosen amid argument, improvisation, and chance. The Great Seal, the flag, the Liberty Bell, and even the bald eagle all carry stories that are part fact, part later invention. As the nation nears the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, historians and museums are revisiting those origins to separate deliberate choice from patriotic myth.

The bald eagle and a surprising debate over national character

When the Continental Congress approved the Great Seal in 1782, the eagle emerged as the central figure. Congress wanted a bird that symbolized strength, independence, and a distinctly American identity. The bald eagle fit the bill: native to North America and visually striking.

That choice wasn’t unanimous. Benjamin Franklin’s famous 1784 letter criticizing the bald eagle—calling it a bird of “bad moral character” and suggesting the turkey would be a more respectable national symbol—has become folklore. Franklin’s critique was part civic humor, part practical observation about the eagle’s scavenging habits. The historical record shows the eagle prevailed because it carried strong visual and heraldic associations, not because the Founders all agreed about its virtues.

The flag: sewn stories and sticky myths

The image of Betsy Ross stitching the first American flag is one of the most enduring stories in schoolbooks. The tale was popularized by Ross family descendants in the 1870s and became widely accepted despite limited contemporary evidence. No primary source ties Ross directly to the 1777 flag that Congress described when it passed the Flag Resolution: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars...” Historians note that while Ross was a skilled seamstress in Revolutionary-era Philadelphia and likely made flags, the singular origin story oversimplifies the collaborative, decentralized nature of early flag-making.

The arrangement of stars and the meaning behind the stripes evolved too. Stars represented the new states, but early flags varied widely in star patterns and stripe arrangements until the design was standardized later.

The Liberty Bell, liberty caps, and borrowed scripture

The Liberty Bell’s fame rests less on its eighteenth-century use and more on nineteenth-century reinvention. Cast in 1752 and recast after cracking, its inscription—“Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof”—comes from Leviticus 25:10 and was common rhetoric in the colonial era. The bell gained its symbolic status in the decades after the Revolution, especially with abolitionist movements that adopted its ringing as a call for freedom.

Other symbols like the liberty cap—a Phrygian cap borrowed from classical republican iconography—appeared in prints, seals, and coins to signal emancipation from monarchy. Those classical references show that Revolutionary imagery drew heavily on ancient Roman and Greek ideas about civic virtue and republican government.

The Great Seal and the patchwork of committees

Designing the Great Seal took six years and three separate committees. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all submitted concepts that reflected different intellectual currents. Jefferson favored classical symbolism, Adams drew on heraldry, and Franklin mixed allegory with practical motifs. The final design, approved in 1782, combined an eagle clutching an olive branch and arrows, a shield, and the motto “E Pluribus Unum”—“Out of many, one.” That motto captured the political experiment of union but was not the product of a single mind; it was the result of negotiation and compromise.

The multiplicity of drafts and the slow approval process remind us that American symbols were forged through debate, not instant inspiration.

Money, myths, and the origins of a symbol: the dollar sign and Uncle Sam

Everyday symbols often have murkier origins than grand monuments. The dollar sign ($) has competing theories: one traces it to the Spanish peso abbreviation “ps,” gradually simplified into a single character; another points to a contraction of the letters “U” and “S” used in early United States bookkeeping. No single explanation is universally accepted, which illustrates how commercial practice and handwriting conventions can evolve into national icons.

Uncle Sam’s persona is easier to pin down. The name is commonly linked to Samuel Wilson, a New York meatpacker whose stamped barrels of beef marked “U.S.” reportedly led soldiers to joke that the food came from “Uncle Sam.” By the War of 1812, the figure had grown into a personification of the federal government, and 19th-century political cartoonists helped solidify his look.

Why these stories keep changing

Symbols endure because they adapt. Myths about Betsy Ross, Franklin’s turkey quip, and dramatic narratives about the Liberty Bell became part of civic education precisely because they were useful—helping later generations narrate a coherent origin story. At the same time, fresh archival finds, new scholarship, and museum reinterpretations keep refining the record.

These stories matter because symbols shape civic imagination. Understanding the real debates behind them—who was involved, what they intended, and how later actors reshaped meanings—gives citizens a clearer sense of how national identity has been constructed, contested, and repurposed over time. For readers interested in more historical context, related resources on our site outline the Revolutionary era and symbolic traditions in American public life.

The next time you see the eagle, the flag, or the Liberty Bell on a stamp or in a classroom, the image may feel familiar. But each symbol carries layers of decision-making, artistic interpretation, and later reinvention that reveal as much about subsequent generations as they do about the Founders themselves. Understanding those layers helps make patriotic symbols more honest, and often richer, than simple legend.