March 31st, 2018 : Old Gory… err, Glory

[xoxoxoBruce]

After 1912 the US has 48 states and the flag has 48 stars… coincidence? I think not.

When Congress approved of Alaska’s statehood in 1958, members of the Eisenhower Administration began receiving an overwhelming number of public redesigns of the nation’s flag. They received over 3,000 red, white, and blue concepts from Americans from all regions and all ages, all of whom held hope that their vision would one day wave across the country for all to see. The design challenge was a longstanding one: President Eisenhower, since 1953, had created a joint committee tasked with figuring out how to best incorporate two new stars to the current flag to represent the then-likely entry of Alaska and Hawaii.

1953 to 1959 for the flag committee? Wonder what that cost us?

Many of the submissions were along traditional lines, probably thinking a better chance of becoming THE ONE.



Others were further a field, very different, and likely to piss off a lot of people, so no.

The 50-star flag as we know it now first flew over Fort McHenry on July 4, 1960, and it has remained the same ever since. Meanwhile, the designs that could have been were never discarded but are preserved to this day in the archives of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kansas. Old Glory, a book recently produced by Atelier Editions, revisits a selection of 50 previously unseen ones that date between 1958 and 1959.

But the system worked, the flag is safe from anarchists, artsy types, and Americans.

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