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The Flag of the United States of America

The fifty-star flag of the United States was flown officially for the first time at 12:01 AM on 

July 4, 1960, at Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, Maryland.  Our National Anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, was penned by Francis Scott Key during the bombardment of Fort McHenry September 13-14, 1814.  The fiftieth star had been added for Hawaii; a year earlier the forty-ninth, for Alaska.  Before that, no star had been added since 1912, when New Mexico and Arizona were admitted to the Union.

The history of the US flag has become so obfuscated by myth and tradition that the facts are difficult, and in some cases impossible, to establish.  It is not even certain who designed the Stars and Stripes, who made the first such flag, or whether it ever flew in any sea fight or land battle of the American Revolution.

It is agreed, however, that the Stars and Stripes originated as the result of a resolution offered by the Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia and adopted on June 14, 1777.  It read:  Resolved:  that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternated red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.  

Congress gave no indication as to the designer of the flag, no instructions as to the arrangement of the stars, and no information on its appropriate uses.  Historians have been unable to find the original flag law.  The resolution establishing the flag was not even published until September 2, 1777.  Despite repeated requests, Washington did not get flags until 1783, after the American Revolution was over, and there is no certainty that they were the Stars and Stripes.

The flag is said to have been named Old Glory by William Driver, a sea captain of Salem, Massachusetts.  One legend has it that when he raised the flag on his brig, the Charles Doggett, in 1824, he said: "I name thee Old Glory."  But his daughter, who presented the flag to the Smithsonian Institution, said he named it at his 21st birthday celebration on March 17, 1824, when his mother presented the homemade flag to him.

Adding New Stars:  The flag of 1777 was unchanged until 1795.  Then, on the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the Union, Congress passed and President Washington signed an act that after May 1, 1795, the flag should have 15 stripes, alternating red and white, and 15 white stars on a blue field.  

As new states were admitted, it became evident that the flag would become burdened with stripes.  Congress thereupon ordered that after July 4, 1818, the flag should have 13 stripes, representative of the 13 original states; that the union have 20 stars, and that whenever a new state was admitted a new star should be added on the July 4 following admission.  No law designates the arrangement of the stars.  However, since 1912, when a new state has been admitted, the new design has been announced by executive order.  No star is specifically identified with any state. 

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