Columbia is a name sometimes used in referring to the United States. Long before the Revolutionary War in America (1775-1783), many people felt that America should have been named Columbia after the explorer Christopher Columbus. During the war, colonial poets used the name to describe the new nation that was to become the United States. Phillis Wheatley, for example, a black slave poet in Massachusetts, used the term in a poem honoring George Washington. Philip Freneau, a poet and journalist, popularized the term in several poems during and after the Revolutionary War. In 1784, King’s College in New York City became Columbia College. Towns, counties, and institutions throughout the United States have since adopted the name.
Loading the player...Washington, the first President of the United States of America
Many artists have symbolically pictured Columbia as a tall, stately woman dressed in flowing garments and holding an American flag. A blue drape with white stars is usually part of her costume. The earliest image of Columbia showed her as an American Indian woman. In the 1800’s, she appeared on the prows of ships, in patriotic paintings, and in pageants representing the Revolutionary War. The Statue of Freedom, on top of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is often incorrectly identified as a statue of Columbia.
