Columbia (personification)

"Miss Columbia" redirects here. For other uses, see Miss Columbia (disambiguation).

Paul Stahr's personified Columbia in an American flag gown and Phrygian cap, from a World War I patriotic poster (c. 1917)

Columbia (/kəˈlʌmbiə/; kə-LUM-bee-ə), also known as Lady Columbia, Miss Columbia is a female national personification of the United States. It was also a historical name applied to the Americas and to the New World. The association has given rise to the names of many American places, objects, institutions and companies, including the District of Columbia; Columbia, South Carolina; Columbia University; "Hail, Columbia"; Columbia Rediviva; and the Columbia River. Images of the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World, erected in 1886) largely displaced personified Columbia as the female symbol of the United States by around 1920, and Lady Liberty was seen as both an aspect of Columbia[1] and a rendition of the Goddess of Liberty. She is the central element of the logo of Hollywood film studio Columbia Pictures.

Columbia is a Neo-Latin toponym, used since the 1730s to refer to the Thirteen Colonies that would form the United States. It originated from the name of the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus and from the Latin ending -ia, common in the Latin names of countries (paralleling Britannia, Gallia, Zealandia, and others).

  1. ^ Donald Dewey (2007). The Art of Ill Will: The Story of American Political Cartoons. New York University Press. p. 13. ISBN 9780814719855. Retrieved February 1, 2020. (Minus the torch and the book, Columbia herself had been called 'Liberty' long before F. S. Bartholdi's sculpture was dedicated in New York harbor in 1886.)