In 1949, President Harry Truman officially made Flag Day a national day of observance. In 1877, the first Flag Day was celebrated, 100 years after the Continental Congress adopted the flag. 16, 1777, had six red stripes and seven white stripes, with 11 white stars arched over the number 76 in the blue field, with one star in each upper corner. The “Bennington Flag,” carried at the Battle of Bennington, Vermont, on Aug. Christopher Gadsden, a member of the Continental Congress, gave the South Carolina Provincial Congress a flag “such as is to be used by the commander-in-chief of the American Navy.” It boasted a yellow field with a rattlesnake about to strike and the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” There were other notable contenders for the official first American banner. Historians agree that no one knows for certain who designed the first American flag, the Stars and Stripes, as it became known, but Francis Hopkinson, designer of a naval flag, asserted that he designed the flag and in 1781 asked Congress to reimburse him for his services. By 1775, the flag had grown to 13 red and white stripes, with a rattlesnake on it. The Sons of Liberty had a flag of nine red and white stripes, to signify nine colonies, when they met in New York in 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act. Historians believe that was the Grand Union Flag. The flag has 13 red and white stripes and 13 white stars in a blue field.Īnother flag was quickly improvised from garments by the defenders of Fort Schuyler at Rome, New York, Aug. Some believe this was the first Stars and Stripes, displayed on July 8, 1776. One of the several flags around which controversy has raged hangs in a public library in Easton, Pa., and has been there for more than 150 years. In spite of many requests, George Washington did not get the flags until 1783, after the war ended - and no one is certain that they were the Stars and Stripes. The resolution establishing the flag was not published until Sept. “Resolved: that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”Ĭongress did not mention the designer of the flag or provide instructions for the stars’ arrangement or guidelines on its appropriate uses. What historians do agree on, however, is that the Stars and Stripes had its genesis with a resolution by the Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia. In 1781, he asked Congress to reimburse him for his services. That flag, as I learned earlier this week, was created in 1776 and became known as the “Betsy Ross” flag, representing the newly formed 13 states of the union.īut with a little further reading in reliable reference books, I learned a whole lot more about our American flag, including that the Betsy Ross story - while considered gospel and confirmed by illustrated history books I read as a boy - is a myth.įrancis Hopkinson, designer of a naval flag, asserted he had designed the first Stars and Stripes. For example, one of the first ones contained a circle of 13 stars on a blue field with the traditional alternating red and white stripes. Coles, I learned some of the symbolism, and in the late 1950s, while living in Fort Eustis, Va., with Colonial Williamsburg just several miles down the highway, and a few facts about early American flags. I didn’t know it at the time, during the weekly Scout meetings I attended in the early 1960s, but Flag Day - established officially by President Woodrow Wilson in May 1916 to fall on June 14 - celebrates the symbolism and history of the American flag. Raymond Coles, said they meant: Red for valor and hardness white for purity and innocence and blue for vigilance, perseverance and justice, perhaps not in those exact words. While never a flag-waving arch patriot, I’ve always liked the way the American flag looks, the appealing boldness of its colors, and, if I remember some of my Boy Scout lessons and what my Scoutmaster in Fort Hood, Texas, Sgt. I think it’s because I grew up in a military family, and Flag Day was a big deal at the many Army posts my family lived on during the 1950s and ’60s. There was a time when I was never sure why we Americans honor the Stars and Stripes every year on June 14.īut I’ve always been glad we do, just as we will today - Flag Day.
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