Happy Birthday, Old Glory!

Patriotism. Loyalty. Freedom. Not many people have a clear understanding – if any understanding – of Flag Day’s importance to the United States. We have spent the better part of this week building up to this day by sharing quotes and poems with you. Now that the actual day is here, let us explore the original meaning and significance of it.

In 1885, a schoolteacher in Fredonia, Wisconsin, had his students observe June 14th as ‘Flag Birthday’. This was the 108th anniversary of the official decision to adopt the Stars and Stripes as the country’s flag. The teacher, BJ Cigrand, and his ideas became very popular, flooded with magazine, newspaper and public recognition as he continued to advocte the observance of the 14th as Flag Day.

The popularity of the idea continued to spread until it was adopted by the State Board of Education of New York, the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia, the New York and Pennsylvania Societies of the Sons of the Revolution, until after three decades of state and local celebrations concentrated to the north eastern U.S.. Inspired by these years, the Proclomation of President Woodrow Wilson officially established Flag Day, the anniversary of the Flag Resolution of 1777. After that, while some communities recognized it, it was not accepted as a nation until August 3rd, 1949, that President Truman signed an Act of Congress, designating June 14th as National Flag Day.

So, in celebration and recognition of the Flag of these, the United States, let’s discover a little about it.

• The famous name, Old Glory, was coined by one Captain William Driver, a shipmaster of Salem Massachusetts, in 1831. It first gained approval with the population during the Civil War, when the Union crowds asked him if the Rebels would ever succesfully destroy his Old Glory, when he promptly told then that they never would.

 

• If the flag is folded correctly, it is, as is well known, folded into the shape of a triangle, showing only the stars. However, many are not aware that it takes 13 folds to shape it that way, signifying  the original 13 colonies.

 

•At one time, the flag was made with 15 stars and stripes, to welcome in Kentucky and Vermont. Our government soon reverted back to the previous model, which exhibited the 13 stripes, as the newer version looked ‘too cluttered’.

Our flag, Old Glory, represents all that America means. In Francis Scott Key’s The Star-Spangled Banner, we see patriotism, loyalty, freedom. This is what our Flag means to us. This is what America means to us.