Eagles and Eyes: The Search for America’s Emblem
The Revolution had been fought. The Constitution was being ratified. But one question remained unanswered. What did this new republic look like? A seal was needed. An emblem. Something that could appear on documents, currency, and flags. Something that could speak when the voice of the country was still finding its tone. In 1782, after six years of proposals and debate, the choice was made. The bald eagle would represent the United States of America. It was not inevitable. Earlier drafts had considered other animals and symbols.
Benjamin Franklin famously favored the turkey, which he believed was more respectable, more native, and less of a scavenger than the eagle. Others suggested biblical imagery, allegorical figures, or mythological beasts. What the eagle offered was presence. Its profile was unmistakable. Its wings stretched wide. Its eyes carried focus. It looked forward. It hunted. It ruled its sky. The Great Seal that emerged in 1782 featured the eagle with outstretched wings, one talon gripping arrows, the other an olive branch. A shield marked its chest.
A banner unfurled in its beak read “E Pluribus Unum.” The message was not subtle. This was a nation prepared for peace but ready for war. It was divided in many ways, but claiming unity. The eagle held contradictions in its claws. In the mural, this emblem appears not as decoration, but as negotiation. An artist etches the image into a copper plate, pausing between lines. Above his shoulder, a draft sketch shows a different bird entirely. On the table nearby lie early coins, each stamped with a slightly different version of the same symbol.
The final design is still taking form. Symbols matter because they simplify. They reduce complexity into a single mark, then ask everyone to believe in it. The eagle did not describe the republic. It declared it. It suggested strength, vision, and independence. It drew from classical associations of Rome and victory. But it was also native to the land. No other country had chosen it. In that way, the emblem gave the United States something it desperately needed at the time- an identity not borrowed from Europe. And yet, the symbol’s power came less from what it was and more from what it allowed. It became a mirror. Generals saw courage.
Merchants saw opportunity. Immigrants saw promise. Politicians saw resolve. The eagle became elastic. It could be printed, carved, and sewn into every corner of the expanding nation, taking on new meanings without shedding its core. It also created expectations. With its wings raised and gaze fixed, the eagle was not a creature of rest. It was alert. Vigilant. Assertive. It embodied a republic that would be active, visible, and forceful in its own affairs. Whether that ideal held up to reality was another matter. But the symbol kept the vision alive. Franklin’s turkey never had a chance after the eagle landed. And for better or worse, that landing became the beginning of a national image that still flies overhead. Because sometimes, identity begins with the eyes.
