Happy Flag Day

On June 14th, 1777, the Continental Congress designated the Stars and Stripes as the official national flag of the United States with the words:

Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.

Why did the US need a new flag after nearly a year of independence? And where did it come from?

The colonies had unofficially been using the Grand Union Flag since December 1776, when then-Lieutenant John Paul Jones raised it over the sloop Alfred. Gen. Washington adopted it for his headquarters flag while besieging Boston, and the use quickly spread. It is not known who designed it or made it.

The Grand Union Flag was similar to the Red Ensign, the civil flag of Great Britain. Grand Union flags were probably made by sewing white stripes onto a Red Ensign. Using the Union Jack as the canton of the Grand Union flag showed loyalty to Britain, a reminder that the colonists were only asking to have their rights as British subjects enforced.

The Grand Union Flag was nearly identical to the ensign of the British East India Company (EIC). EIC operated as a state within a state in the Orient. It governed its territory autonomously and operated an army and a navy. It was loyal to the king, who had granted it a royal charter. Benjamin Franklin had even suggested that EIC would be a good model for American relations to the crown. Using a flag nearly identical to the EIC ensign was a reminder that the American colonies were asking for a status that had already been granted to others.

After the colonies declared independence on 4 July 1776, the Grand Union Flag became obsolete because it had declared American loyalty to Britain; but it continued to be used as nothing had been designated to replace it. The Congress was occupied with far weightier matters than designing a flag. So it took until 14 June 1777, nearly a year after independence, before the Congress got around to promulgating a new flag.

Congress took the Grand Union flag and replaced the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew (that represented England and Scotland) on the blue field with thirteen stars, which represented a new constellation. Colored stripes were a common device in European heraldry to represent the number of political subdivisions on a coat of arms.

Francis Hopkinson from Pennsylvania was probably the main designer, although others probably gave input. He had been a delegate to the Continental Congress and was chairman of the Navy Board when he designed the flag. He also designed the Great Seal of the United States, the Continental currency, the first US Navy flag, and other emblems. When he submitted a bill for his work in 1780, Congress denied it on the grounds that he had had help in making the designs. Hopkinson's invoice for designing the first US flag and other national symbols is the only contemporary claim to the authorship of the flag.

The story that Betsy Ross designed or sewed the first flag is almost certainly a legend. It was only in 1870 that her grandson William Canby first mentioned the idea, and then he said it was a story that he had been told and for which he had been unable to find any evidence.

There was no standard design for the new constellation of stars in the blue field. Although modern depictions of the first US flag usually show the stars arranged in a circle, most commonly they were in rows:

And that is why on 14 June we celebrate our flag as a symbol of a new constellation of states, a new order of the ages, and a symbol of the first nation to recognize that all men have been endowed with rights by their Creator.