no
she said
to men with fists
clenched
arms crossed
and fingers
pointing
no she said
Uncle Sam is wrong
this is our land
these are our children
and this our story
our truth
to tell
This collage combines a 100 year old map of North America with James Montgomery Flagg's Uncle Sam from his I Want YOU for U.S. Army poster (1917) and Robert Harris's A Meeting of the School Trustees (1885).
The story
Three printed things meet here.
The room is Robert Harris's A Meeting of the School Trustees (1885), now in the National Gallery of Canada: a one-room schoolhouse on Prince Edward Island, the trustees seated, and a young teacher standing her ground before them. Harris's model for the teacher was Kate Henderson, a teacher from the Island.
Behind them is a map of North America about a hundred years old. And leaning in is Uncle Sam, from James Montgomery Flagg's I Want YOU recruiting poster of 1917, printed in the millions during the First World War. Flagg used his own face for Uncle Sam's.