One of the biggest reasons that Americans fly the flag is to pay respect to our country and the freedoms that we all get to enjoy. That also means paying respect and honoring those who have sacrificed everything for us and for our freedom. We all may have different reasons why we fly the American flag. But many of us would probably agree that when we see Old Glory flying high up in the sky we not only remember the brave men and women who have fought for us in the past but also those who continue fighting for us today. The flag is also a symbol of pride, inspiration, hope and solidarity. It is a flag that brings Americans together. In our country’s darkest times and greatest triumphs, the American flag has been our symbol.
Ultimately the flag provides us a way, no matter who we are, to honor and show appreciation for this great nation of ours…
The United States of America.
1777—1795
The first flag of the United States is believed to have been designed by Francis Hopkinson, a congressman from New Jersey, and sewn by Betsy Ross, a seamstress from Pennsylvania. The 13 stripes representing the original colonies and the 13 stars representing the original states. While the stripes would always remain the same, the number of stars grew exponentially from here to accommodate new states.
1795—1818
Despite joining the union in 1791 and 1792 respectively, Vermont and Kentucky‘s statehoods were not celebrated with stars until 1795.
1818—1819
On July 4th, 1818, the U.S. flag was updated with a 20-star design to reflect the new statehoods of Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee.
1819—1820
America added a 21st star and 58,000 square miles of land when Illinois became a state on December 3, 1818.
1820—1822
Though you don’t typically couple southern Alabama with northern Maine, the 22nd and 23rd states earned their stars on the flag at the very same time.
1822—1836
The first flag to be referred to as “Old Glory,” this version boasts 24 stars on account of Missouri joining the union in 1821.
1836—1837
A 25th star was added when Arkansas, formerly part of the Louisiana territory, achieved statehood in 1836.
1837—1845
When Michigan became a state in 1837, a 26th star was added to the flag.
1845—1846
Hot on Michigan’s heels, Florida, “The Sunshine State” joined the United States and its flag in 1845.
1846—1847
After taking nearly a decade off from expansion, the United States added a 28th state, Texas.
1847—1848
The 29th state of the union, Iowa, joined up on December 28th, 1846. Unsurprisingly, the state had to wait until 1847 to see itself represented on the flag.
1848—1851
The United States granted Wisconsin its statehood on May 29, 1848, making it the 30th.
1851—1858
On September 9, 1850, California received its statehood. “The Golden State” would be America’s western-expanding 31st.
1858—1859
In 1858, America expanded north by adding Minnesota to the union. The 32nd state wouldn’t have to wait long to lose its “new guy” status in the sea of stars that marks the upper-left corner of the American flag.
1859—1861
After being mapped by Lewis and Clark during their famous expedition, Oregon became the 33rd United State.
1861—1863
On January 29, 1861, with the Civil War seeming all but inevitable, the United States welcomed the “Sunflower State,” Kansas.
1863—1865
When Virginia decided to secede from the United States during the Civil War, the western part of the state opted to become their own state, West Virginia. They became the 35th state on June 20, 1863.
1865—1867
The Nevada, “Sagebrush State” became America’s 36th state on October 21, 1864.
1867—1877
Two years after the end of the Civil War, the 37th state, Nebraska, was granted its statehood.
1877—1890
Colorado joined the union as the 37th state in 1876. For 13 years, it would remain the newest addition to the USA.
1890—1891
After over a decade of going along with the status quo, the United States added states 39—43: Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington.
1891—1896
Wyoming became the 44th state to join the union in 1890, creating another new challenge for American flag designers.
1896—1908
The 45h member of the union, Utah saw its star go on the American flag exactly 7 months after it was granted statehood.
1908—1912
On November 16, 1907, Oklahoma became the 46th member of the United States. Though it would still see some more changes, this 46-star version of the American flag was beginning to look like the one we see today.
1912—1959
New Mexico was the 47th state to join the union on January 6, 1912. Arizona, which was once a part of New Mexico, became a state, the 48th, on February 14, 1912.
1959—1960
In 1959, President Eisenhower signed a proclamation making Alaska the 49th and largest state in the U.S.
The flag should be displayed on all days when weather permits, especially on legal holidays or other special occasions. It is customary to display the flag from sunrise to sunset on buildings or on stationary flagstaffs in the open. However, on special occasions it may be displayed at night, preferably lighted. In several places the flag flies day and night; among these are the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and the Fort Henry National Monument in Baltimore, which was the inspiration for “The Star Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key.
The flag should be displayed:
How to Display the Flag
When carried in procession with another flag or flags, the Stars and Stripes should be at the right-front of the column, or when there is a line of other flags, in front of the center of that line. The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and floating free.
When a number of flags are grouped and displayed from staffs, the flag of the United States should be in the center or at the highest point of the group. When displayed with another flag from crossed staffs, the flag of the United States should be on the right (the flag’s own right), and its staff should be in front of the staff of the other flag.
If the flag is displayed from a staff projected from a window sill, balcony or front of a building, the union of the flag should go to the peak of the staff (unless the flag is to be displayed at half-staff).
When the flag is displayed in any manner other than being flown from a staff, it should be displayed flat, whether indoors or out. If displayed either horizontally or vertically against a wall, the union should be uppermost and to the flag’s own right; that is to the observer’s left. When displayed in a window it should be suspended in the same way-that is, with the union to the left of the observer in the street.
When displayed over the middle of the street, the Stars and Stripes should be suspended vertical with the union to the north on an east-west street and to the east on a north-south street.
When the flag is suspended over a sidewalk from a rope extending from house to pole at the edge of the sidewalk, the flag should be hoisted out from the building toward the pole union first.
When used on a speaker’s platform the flag may be displayed flat, above and behind the speaker. If flown from a staff it should be on the speaker’s right; all other flags on the platform should be on his left.
When it is displayed on the pulpit or chancel in a church, the flag should be flown from a staff placed on the clergyman’s right as he faces the congregation. All other flags on the pulpit or chancel should be on his left.
However, when the flag is displayed on the floor of a church or auditorium, on a level with the audience, it is placed to the right of the audience.
When flags of states or cities, or pennants of societies, are flown on the same halyard with the flag of the United States, the latter should always be at the peak. When flown from adjacent staffs, the Stars and Stripes should be raised first and lowered last.
When used to cover a casket, the flag should be placed so that the union is at the head and over the left shoulder. The flag should not be lowered into the grave or allowed to touch the ground. The casket should be carried foot-first from the hearse to the grave.
Saluting the Flag
In saluting the flag those present in uniform should render the military salute. When not in uniform, men should remove the hat with the right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Women, and men without hats, should place the right hand over the heart. Aliens should stand at attention.
All persons present should face the flag, stand at attention and salute on the following occasions:
When the National Anthem is played and the flag is not displayed, all present should stand and face toward the music. Those in uniform should salute at the first note of the anthem, retaining this position until the last note. All others should stand at attention, men removing their hats. When the flag is displayed, all present should face the flag and salute.
How to Dispose of Worn Flags
Every precaution should be taken to prevent the flag from becoming soiled. When a flag is in such a condition, through wear or damage, that is no longer a fitting emblem for display, it should be destroyed privately in a dignified manner.
The flag should NEVER
Displaying U.S. Flag Off-Staff
When the flag is displayed in any manner other than being flown from a staff, it should be displayed flat, whether indoors or out. If displayed either horizontally or vertically against a wall, the union should be uppermost and to the flag’s own right; that is to the observer’s left. When displayed in a window it should be suspended in the same way-that is, with the union to the left of the observer in the street.
Displaying U.S. Flag with State, City or Society Flags
When flags of states or cities, or pennants of societies, are flown on the same halyard with the flag of the United States, the latter should always be at the peak. When flown from adjacent staffs, the Stars and Stripes should be raised first and lowered last.
Displaying U.S. Flag with Foreign Flags
No other flag may be flown above the United States flag except at the United Nations Headquarters. The UN flag may be placed above flags of all member nations. No other flag can be placed to the United States flag’s right.
Displaying U.S. Flag with Crossed Staffs
When displayed with another flag from crossed staffs, the flag of the United States should be on the right (the flag’s own right), and its staff should be in front of the staff of the other flag.
Displaying U.S. Flag in Grouping
When a number of flags are grouped and displayed from staffs, the flag of the United States should be in the center or at the highest point of the group.
Displaying Nation Flags Together
When the flags of two or more nations are displayed together they should be flown from separate staffs of the same height, and the flags should be of approximately equal size. International usage forbids the display of the flag of one nation above that of another in time of peace.
Displaying U.S. Flag in a Church
When it is displayed on the pulpit or chancel in a church, the flag should be flown from a staff placed on the clergyman’s right as he faces the congregation. All other flags on the pulpit or chancel should be on his left.
“Our flag carries American ideas, American history, and American feelings,” Henry Ward Beecher declared in 1861 to a group of Union soldiers. “It is not a painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the Constitution. It is the government.”1
It wasn’t always so. Though iconic today—it is hard to imagine World War II without also picturing the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, or to think about 9/11 without also seeing the New York firefighters hoisting the red, white, and blue above the ruins of the World Trade Center—the American flag has a long and storied history. Its story in many ways mirrors that of the nation it represents.
The flag has grown and evolved with the American colonies, first as the colonies became “these United States of America,” and then as the nation grew to welcome new states. To study the flag, then, is to be reminded of the history and ideals of the nation.
Birth of the American Flag
Even before they declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776, American colonists created their own flags to provide a symbol for their opposition to British policies. In the mid-1760s, the Sons of Liberty—best known as the instigators of the Boston Tea Party in 1773—rallied around white flags with the word “liberty” spelled out in large capital letters.
Other flags displayed a rattlesnake, a motif inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s remark in 1751 that a rattlesnake would make an appropriate gift for the colonists to send to England.
The Gadsden flag (so named for its creator, Christopher Gadsden), for example, consisted of a drawing of a coiled rattler with the words “Don’t Tread on Me” underneath, while other flags simply re-created the cartoon Franklin himself had penned during the French and Indian War, showing a segmented snake and the words “Join, or Die.” Another popular anti-British symbol—especially in New England—was the pine tree, which comes from the 1629 seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was subsequently used on the 1686 flag of New England.
That banner, present at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, consists of a red background, with the Cross of St. George and a pine tree shown in the upper left-hand corner.
None of these revolutionary-era flags, however, became emblematic in all of the colonies as the American flag. Indeed, throughout the Revolutionary War the American colonists rallied around many different flags.
The one that came closest to a national flag was the “Continental Colors” or the “Union Flag,” which George Washington hoisted on January 1, 1776, at his camp outside of Boston to recognize the birth of the Continental Army. This flag featured the British Union Jack, with its Crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, in the canton (the top left-hand corner), and then had 13 alternating red and white stripes flowing horizontally across
Although historians aren’t sure who designed the flag, a popular explanation of its origins is that the use of the Union Jack showed the colonists’ belief—especially during the early stages of the conflict—that they were fighting for their rights as Englishmen.2 (The British, too, saw something in the colonists’ use of the Union Jack: three days after having the flag raised, Washington recorded that the British saw it as a “signal of submission” and thought the colonists were surrendering!3 )
The Union Flag raised by Washington was also used by American naval forces, and by the beginning of 1777 the Maritime Committee of the Continental Congress issued orders making this de facto practice standard across the Navy.
On July 4, 1776—just two days after passing the motion declaring independence—the Continental Congress appointed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to a committee to design the Great Seal of the United States.
Rejecting their design, the Congress eventually went through two more committees before finally adopting a design in June 1782.
The process for adopting the American flag could not have been more different. It was not until almost a year after the war had officially begun that Congress even took up the question of a national flag—and then it only did so during a session dealing with fiscal affairs.
On June 14, 1777, after debating matters such as advance pay for specific Continental Army officers and delegating command of Continental Navy ships sailing in the Delaware River, the Congress passed a short resolution:
Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.4
No record exists of who introduced the resolution, or why it was introduced. We only know that the motion carried without debate or comment. The resolution did not set the size or proportions of the flag, or even what shape the constellation of stars should be.
For that matter, the resolution didn’t determine what shape the flag itself should be. As a result, flags of the era showed the constellation of stars in different arrangements, and flags were made with differing proportions.
And though the resolution was passed fairly early in the war, other flags remained popular, and it is likely that Washington still used the Union Flag for most of the war.
Nor are the origins of the flag’s design known. Many historians believe that Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from New Jersey, holds the honor. In addition to being a lawyer and congressman, Hopkinson was also an artist, and it was his design for the Great Seal that the second committee on the subject submitted to Congress in 1780.
That year Hopkinson sought compensation from Congress for his designs for the Great Seal (which Congress chose not to use), the seal for the Treasury Board, and the flag of the United States.
The Treasury Board refused the request, noting that Hopkinson “was not the only person consulted on those exhibitions.”5
Another account of the flag’s creation, of course, involves Betsy Ross. Born in 1752 as Elizabeth Griscom, she married John Ross shortly before the Revolutionary War began, and the couple started a small upholstery shop in Philadelphia. In January 1776, John was killed while on patrol with the local militia.
Betsy married twice more before independence was won—the second marriage also left her a war widow—and she continued the sewing business she and John had started. According to the story made popular by her grandson William Canby in the 1870s, Ross sewed the first version of the stars and stripes when she was visited by George Washington at her shop in June 1776.
Washington, accompanied by Colonel George Ross and Pennsylvania Congressman Robert Morris, called on the seamstress with a rough sketch of the flag, which he then redrew to incorporate her suggestions. Ross sewed the flag, and Washington and his committee returned to Congress to show them the country’s new standard, which Congress readily accepted.
Whether the story is true or not (most historians think it isn’t), we do know that Ross was a seamstress and that she probably did sew American flags; she just didn’t create the first one.
An Evolving Flag for a Growing Country
The resolution passed by Congress in 1777 also failed to provide guidelines for how the flag should be adapted were new states to be added to the Union.
In 1795, to mark the admission of Vermont and Kentucky in 1791 and 1792, respectively, Congress passed a resolution to add two new stars and stripes to the flag. It was this 15-starred-and-striped version that flew during the War of 1812.
It was also during this war that the nation’s future national anthem—an ode to the flag—was penned. On the morning of September 14, 1814, the lawyer Francis Scott Key wrote the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner” after watching the British bombardment of Fort McHenry all night long. Key, viewing the attack from a British vessel in the Chesapeake Bay, woke in the morning to find, despite the all-night attack, “that our flag was still there.” Key’s words, published just a few days after the battle, helped begin the process of unifying the country around the flag.
As the Smithsonian Museum of American History notes, “Key transformed the official emblem into something familiar and evocative, a symbol that Americans could connect with and claim as their own. The flag . . . became a representation of the country’s values and the ideals for which it stands.”6
As the nation continued to expand, Congress, realizing the impracticalities of adding a stripe for each joining state, declared in 1818 that the flag would once again have 13 stripes—one for each of the original colonies—but that a new star would be added for each new state. This star would be added to the flag on the Fourth of July holiday following the state’s admission to the Union.
Between 1818 and 1861, a total of 16 new states entered the Union, with the result that a new version of the flag was issued several years in a row as the western territories gained statehood.
As the country moved toward civil war, many in the South suggested that the American flag be retired when war broke out. Then-US Senator and soon-to-be President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis made such an argument on the floor of the US Senate in early January 1861, just a few weeks after seven Southern states had issued declarations of secession from the Union:
My pride is that that flag [the flag of the United States] shall not be set between contending brothers, and that, when it shall no longer be the common flag of the country, it shall be folded up and laid away like a vesture no longer used; that it shall be kept as a sacred memento of the past, to which each of us can make a pilgrimage, and remember the glorious days in which we were born.7
Davis suggestion was not taken, and in many ways the flag became more important to the Union as a result of the war, with many in the North viewing the flag as a symbol of their defense of the whole American Republic against the offenses of the southern states (whose stars remained on the flag).
According to Whitney Smith, the founding editor of The Flag Bulletin, it was in the midst of the Civil War that the cult of the flag began. During this time, he notes, “The flag was everywhere.
Every school flew a flag and prior to that there is only one known instance—in 1817—of a school flying an American flag. Union soldiers even carried miniature flags called Bible flags, small enough to fit in the Bible they would take with them to the battlefield.
The start of the Civil War was the beginning of the sense we have today of the American flag as an everyday object and of something that belongs to everyone.”8
It was also during the Civil War that the flag became known as “Old Glory,” a name bestowed upon it by William Driver, a Massachusetts-born resident of Nashville, Tennessee who had been given a homemade version of the flag by his mother in the 1820s. Driver displayed the flag on his whaler boat and for special holidays at his home in Nashville. During the War, he hid the flag from the Confederates, unfurling it again when the city came under the control of federal troops.
The Modern Flag
Following the Civil War, the flag’s popularity continued to grow. Veterans groups organized across the country and displayed the flag during their parades. One such group, the Grand Army of the Republic, led by General John A. Logan, instituted Decoration Day (later known as Memorial Day), a time set aside to decorate the graves of the fallen and to “raise above them the dear old flag they saved.”9
Even in those states that had replaced the stars and stripes with Confederate flags, Old Glory proved to be reconciliatory, as shown by Gilbert H. Bates’s four-month journey through the South carrying an American flag in 1868. Though many in the North thought that the former Confederates would take umbrage, Bates (a former soldier in the Union Army) and his flag were welcomed with warm receptions wherever he went in the war-torn South.
In Richmond, for example, he was greeted by celebratory cannon fire and 500 residents of the former capital of the Confederacy.
The centennial celebration in 1876 increased fervor for the flag, as cities across the country became covered in red, white, and blue to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Flag Day soon became its own cause for celebration, with the unofficial holiday achieving widespread popularity in the 1890s. (See below for a complete history of Flag Day.)
On October 21, 1892, schools across the country celebrated Columbus Day, and with it inaugurated what would become the national Pledge of Allegiance. Written by Francis Bellamy, an editor of The Youth’s Companion, the Pledge was to be used by schools at their flag-raising ceremonies. 10
Though the Pledge was only officially recognized by Congress in 1942, it quickly became popular in American schools, with many states adopting it for daily school exercises.
It was not until 1912, though, that the flag that Americans pledged allegiance to became standardized across the nation. Indeed, according to a government study undertaken in 1907—the year Oklahoma joined the union, constituting the flag’s 46th star—federal agencies were flying 66 different versions of the American flag, with varying sizes, proportions, and arrangements of stars.
In 1912, President Howard Taft signed Executive Order 1637 finally prescribing the exact proportions and dimensions of flags flown by the US government.
Two years later President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation officially establishing June 14 as a national Flag Day. In 1923, at the behest of the American Legion, representatives from nearly 70 patriotic organizations and governmental agencies met together in Washington, DC to create the National Flag Code. The Code set guidelines for flag usage, and was eventually adopted by Congress in 1942.
The last stars were added to the flag on July 4, 1960, following the statehoods of Alaska and Hawaii in 1958 and 1959, respectively. The new 50-starred version was designed by an Ohio high school student, Robert G. Heft, who created the flag for a class history project.
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower set up a commission to design the new flag, Heft’s congressman presented the student’s flag to the committee—and they, in turn, passed it along to the president. It is this flag that, as of July 4, 2007, became the longest-serving flag of the United States.
1 Henry Ward Beecher, Address to the 14th Brooklyn Regiment, see below.
2 An interesting side note is that the Union Flag looks almost identical to the flag that the East India Company had been flying in other parts of the world since the 1670s; since the flag was not used in American waters, historians think the likeness simply a coincidence.
3 Marc Leepson, Flag: An American Biography (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2005), 18.
4 Journals of the American Congress from 1774–1788, Vol. 2 (Washington: Way and Gideon, 1823), 165.
5 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, Vol. 18 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1910), 984.
6 “Symbols of a New Nation,” Smithsonian Institution, http://amhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/symbolsof-a-new-nation.aspx.
7 Jefferson Davis, Speech of the Hon. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, Delivered in the United States Senate, on the 10th day of January, 1861, Upon the Message of the President of the United States, on the Condition of Things in South Carolina (Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1861), 7.
8 Leepson, Flag: An American Biography, 91–92.
9 John A. Logan, General Orders No. 11, May 5, 1868, recorded in the Journal of the Fiftieth National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1916), 304.
For a history of Memorial Day and selected readings, visit the-meaning-of-memorial-day.
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