For several months, I’ve been getting some not-so-subtle messages, via a television commercial, insisting that it’s somehow un-American to fly a flag that wasn’t made in America. That advertiser has the right to promote his flag. After all, the flag represents free speech, free enterprise and a number of other freedoms. Nowhere in our nation’s laws or flag protocol does it say that our flag must be made in America by Americans from American materials.
I did some research into our flag’s history and found a few surprises along the way. Quite a few things regarding our flag occurred during the month of December, and some things I was taught as a child turned out to be untrue. Ever since I was in first grade, I’ve believed that Betsy Ross made our first flag at the behest of George Washington. I learned that is just a pretty myth, and that we had our Stars and Stripes some time before we were a nation. On December 3, 1775, the first flag of the United Colonies (not United States) was flown for the first time. While later flags displayed varying numbers of stars representing colonies and then states, the thirteen original colonies were first represented in the thirteen stripes as legislated on December 31, of that year.
The U.S. Flag was adopted on June 14, 1777, by the Second Continental Congress through a resolution that established the design of the flag featuring thirteen red and white stripes and thirteen white stars on a blue field. At that time, the stars were intended to symbolize unity. It wasn’t until a new Flag Act was passed on April 4, 1818, that the stars began to represent the states. The arrangement of the stars on the blue field has been changed many times in the flag’s history as states were added, and there are several variations in use today, all are legitimate regardless of the number of stars they show. Of significance to Iowans, the 28th of December marks the date in 1846, that we officially became a state, adding the 29th star to the flag.
It is legal to display any version of our flag, no matter how it has changed over the years, so that 48-star flag your grandparents flew during WWII has just as much meaning and is just as “authentic” as the one you are being urged to buy today (that supposedly more “patriotic” version.) Do not get rid of a flag just because it was not made in America. All that misleading flim-flam has the potential to lead people to get rid of flags of supposedly questionable origin as if they were somehow invalid or illegal. Not so. The only reason to get rid of a flag is if it is so tattered or otherwise damaged that it cannot be flown, and then it should be disposed of in a respectful ceremony. Check with your local American Legion or other military organization to find out more.
Other than the disposal of retired flags, there is little protocol or etiquette regarding the treatment of flags. The flag should never be dipped (bowed) to any person, flag, or emblem. It should never be allowed to touch the ground. It should not be used as clothing, decoration or put to any use other than as a symbol of our nation. It should never be flown upside down except as a signal of dire distress, and it should be treated with respect no matter where it was made or by whom.
Flags go back as far as 3,000 BCE in Egypt and 2,000 BCE in China but were then only symbols of kings or military leaders and made of wood or other solid materials. What we think of as flags go back to the early Danish people. Before that time, fabric banners were used to represent kings, guilds, armies, and at sea to identify ships. The oldest flag in continuous use is featured in a legend from a 1219, crusade in Estonia. Danish King Valdemar was losing the battle when a red flag with a white cross fell from the sky, inspiring the Danes to rally and win the battle. The name of the banner, Dannebrog, means literally “Danish cloth.”
The first postage stamp showing the American flag (actually two flags and an eagle) was issued in 1867, cost 30 cents, and was symbolic of our reunified nation following the Civil War.