Vile - AMERICAN FLAG: an encyclopedia of the stars and stripes in u.s. history, culture, and law

The American Flag

Copyright 2018 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Vile, John R., author.

Title: The American flag : an encyclopedia of the Stars and Stripes in U.S. history, culture, and law / John R. Vile.

Description: Santa Barbara, California : ABC-CLIO, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018010859 (print) | LCCN 2018011774 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440857898 (eBook) | ISBN 9781440857881 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: FlagsUnited StatesHistoryEncyclopedias.

Classification: LCC CR113 (ebook) | LCC CR113 .V55 2018 (print) | DDC 929.9/20973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010859

ISBN: 978-1-4408-5788-1 (print)

978-1-4408-5789-8 (ebook)

22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

ABC-CLIO

An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC

130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911

Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911

www.abc-clio.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

To the Republic, for which it stands.

May it always seek liberty and justice for all.

Contents

Artists, Paintings, and Exhibits

Cases

Causes, Events, and Organizations

Desecration of the Flag

Design Elements

Designers and Makers of Flags

Famous Flags

Flag Collectors and Collections

Folk Art and Popular Culture

Holidays and Commemorations

Laws and Executive Orders

Miscellaneous

Organizations

Photographs and Photographers

Places, Including Statues and Memorials

Pledge of Allegiance

Poets, Poems, and Other Literary Works

Protocol Surrounding Flag

Songs and Anthems

Speeches

Wars and War-Related

Throughout most of my academic life, I have focused on issues related to American Founding Fathers (and Mothers), the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the constitutional amending process, the U.S. Constitution and its interpretation, and other related issues. A number of my works, including titles devoted to the First and Fourth Amendments, civil liberties, and proposed constitutional amendments, have been encyclopedic in nature. But I had not, prior to this volume, given much academic thought to the American flag. I probably never would have done so if Kevin Hillstrom from ABC-CLIO had not contacted me about taking on the project.

As I pondered the proposal, I learned that there were some great books about both the general history of the flag and about subtopics as well as numerous articles and Internet sources. I quickly became excited about the possibility of focusing on a new area of scholarship that I thought might strike a popular chord with general audiences. Throughout my career, I have enjoyed speaking to local civic groups, and the American flag was a topic that would be an especially appropriate topic around such holidays as Flag Day, Independence Day, and Memorial Day. As I write this, I am only now beginning to get such invitations, but I may never be able to top my first, which was a talk to the local Rotary group. It was having a breakfast not in its usual upstairs spot at a local country club but in the basement. When the time arrived for the pledge to the flag, the Rotary president realized that the flag was upstairs. After someone pointed out that I was wearing a tie with images of the American flag, the audience began directing its attention in my direction and saluting the flag on my tie!

When I was about six years old, I spent a year with my parents in Costa Rica, where they were learning Spanish in preparation for missionary work. One of the highlights that I remember was a day (probably Independence Day) for Americans at the American ambassadors house. The building was decked out for the day in American flags and featured an appearance by an Uncle Sam dressed in red, white, and blue and walking on stilts.

I grew up during the Cold War. I well remember pictures and films about exploding nuclear bombs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the assassination and funeral of President John F. Kennedy, whose flag-draped coffin was carried on a caisson to Arlington National Cemetery, which he had visited just weeks earlier. A picture of George Washington adorned the classrooms in the elementary school that I attended in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where we began each day with a salute to the American flag. During this time, I was fortunate enough to have a Mennonite friend who joined me (a Baptist) in refusing to sing any worldly dancing songs in class. But he also stood silently as the rest of us saluted the flag, an action which he thought was a form of idolatry. Although my family and I did not share this view, I admired his display of conviction and have thus recognized from a fairly early age that people interpret symbols and ceremonies differently. I continue to believe that one of the beauties of the American system, and the flag that symbolizes it, is that it remains open to individuals of various religious and political persuasions.

In upper elementary school, I was one of a small number of students who helped make announcements over the schools loudspeaker system as buses arrived and who participated in the lowering of the flag every afternoon. Although I dont recall receiving a specific lesson in flag protocol, I knew that the flag was not supposed to touch the ground and that it was to be respectfully folded into a triangle at the end of each day, and I took pride in my role and the badge that accompanied it.

I first became interested in politics during the Kennedy/Nixon election of 1960 and the Johnson/Goldwater election of 1964. I recall proudly waving a small flag on a wooden stick in my bedroom, especially enjoying the sound of air rustling through the folds of the flag. Just as wind makes flags appear to be alive, the flag has almost always been a living symbol to me, not only representing what the United States has been but also pointing to the high ideals to which it has aspired.

Despite this personal link to the flag and to the constitutional system that it represents, prior to writing this book I did not have more than a passing intellectual interest in the flag per se. I was unfamiliar with the term vexillology, which refers to the study of flags, or even of the fact that there were organizations and journals devoted to the subject. Indeed, I might well have associated the study of flags with individuals (and there probably arent that many) who are even geekier than I am. The writers of the television comedy The Big Bang Theory, with its periodic episodes about Fun with Flags, clearly associate the study of flags with intellectual trivia; in a recent episode, the only person who called in to the Fun with Flags vodcast was a friend who wanted to give an update on his love life.

Although I dont think the writers of The Big Bang Theory are far from the mark in guessing that there are probably not many Americans who have much interest in flags in general, I have found that many