I want YOU to remember my original hat

The famous poster showing Uncle Sam sternly declaring "I want YOU for U.S. Army" aimed at recruiting service personnel is 100 years old now.

Do you remember what color his hat was? The poster shows the top half being purely white, and there are other images of the time showing this, but checking everywhere today shows it has wide vertical red stripes against this white background.

The poster style proved so successful it was repeated, with suitable variations, many times elsewhere - for example, the mustached Lord Kitchener British one of 1914.

Walter Botts

Walter Botts modelled the pose for the original poster, and years later recreated it. Notice anything unusual here? Both are shown in the same image!

Strong Mandela Effect

The Uncle Sams Hat stripe controversy is considered one of the strongest Mandela Effects, because most people have seen the image so it's not an obscure brand or something only those in one particular country would be familiar with. It's an interesting exercise to ask those who aren't familiar with the issue, to just draw or describe how it appeared, because the consensus is that 50% say it had stripes and 50% say it didn't. 

There are reports of the original poster flip-flopping too. This is where someone becomes aware of this Mandela Effect, find some evidence such as the original poster, then later checks out the same poster to find it had reverted back. They aren't just Googling images and finding a bunch with it reversed, they are talking of the exact same poster they saw the first time round.

Pointing the finger

The idea wasn't actually new - the first incarnation was actually a woman called Columbia in 1738, before the USA officially even existed. Her headgear did feature red stripes

The poster was created for a World War 1 recruitment drive. The lack of stripes is clearly visible: