“The flag of the United States shall consist of thirteen stripes of alternating red and white, with a union of thirteen white stars on a blue field, representing the new constellation.” This was the form that the US national flag was supposed to take according to the resolution passed by Congress on June 14, 1777. However, this particular resolution probably referred to a naval ensign, since it appears among other resolutions of the Navy Committee. After all, at the end of the 18th century, the concept of the national flag did not yet have the dimension and importance that we know today.
One theory, now considered a “myth” and apparently based on an 1876 play, is that the design was inspired by George Washington’s family coat of arms, which featured three red stars above two horizontal red bars in a white field. In any case, the resolution of June 14 did not specify any specific arrangement; neither orientation about the stars and their arrangement, nor whether there should be seven red stripes and six white or vice versa. The appearance of the newly voted flag, in other words, was actually up to each manufacturer. Some placed the stars in such a way as to form one large star; others in a circle or in rows, and there were some cases where there were blue stripes in addition to white and red.
The American flag, designed according to the logic of the above resolution, was presented for the first time at the Battle of Brandywine, on September 11 of the same year. It was first hailed by foreign warships on February 14, 1778, when the Ranger, commanded by Captain Paul Jones, arrived in a French port, and was first seen in foreign territory early in 1778, when the Americans captured a British fort in the Bahamas.
However, full adoption of the flag would not be a reality anytime soon. Despite the congressional resolution, in the early years of American independence there were many different flags. The main reason for this was that most were manufactured individually and not en masse. Gradually, however, a more general trend would be observed: the number of stars would increase in a manner proportional to the accession of a state to the Union. Each new star would appear on the flag on July 4, the US national holiday. Today, the stars represent all 50 states while the stripes remain thirteen, representing the thirteen original colonies.
June 14th is Flag Day for the USA – precisely because of the passage of the first resolution by Congress. On June 14, 1889, Professor George Bolch, director of a nursery school for the poor children of New York, organized patriotic ceremonies to mark the anniversary. The initiative attracted the attention of the US Department of Education, which decided to implement something similar in all public schools with the main aim of raising the national esteem of immigrant children. About a decade later, in 1897, the governor of New York ordered the display of the flag on all public buildings in the state. However, it wasn’t until 1937 that Pennsylvania would become the first state to establish Flag Day as a legal holiday, which is still recognized today.
Column editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis