Flag Day in the United States happens on June 14. Flag Day was first proposed in 1861 to rally support for the Union side of the American Civil War, but it wasn't until August 3, 1949 it was officially established by Congress. Even at that, it is not an official federal holiday, letting the president officially proclaim the observance. For an article about the Union Flag during the American Civil War and even more facts about the flag and flagpoles, check HD Flagpoles.
Gettysburg. July 3, 1863, a tattered yet defiant American flag, dimmed by
gunpowder and torn by shot, still gleamed with the promise of a united
nation.
Those Civil War roots led me to a story from the memoir of young Julia Taft Bayne. The jacket copy tells about her book, Tad Lincoln's Father.
While there is quite a division of political thought currently, may all our stars remain on our flag, and let us celebrate Flag Day by remembering this story of Lincoln and the flag.
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This is part of a
series of postings of stories under the category, “Keeping the
Public in Public Domain.” The idea behind Public Domain was to
preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate
heirs were compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays
this intent on works of the 20th century. My own library
of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided
to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy discovering them.
At
the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates
projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an
audience. Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the
publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.
This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.
(Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared
towards future storytelling to an audience.) Response has
convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain"
should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage
it.
Ever since the start of this month, the tales of Betsy Ross and our American "mythology" have been featured. It might have ended
with my conversations with Rivka, but then I found the following blog article, "5 myths about the American
flag"
in my July 5th Inbox from AARP. The very first comment, even before the "5
myths", describes how we have schoolchildren pledge allegiance to the
flag.
As a One-Room Schoolteacher I have to
figure out the time frame for each specific program. Rural schools of one
and two rooms ranged from pioneer times -- remember those pioneers and their
schools kept moving west -- to some rural areas. This even continued beyond the
improvements made to many schools by the 1930s WPA. There's a fascinating story in Wikipedia about the twists and turns of the Pledge. When figuring the timing for usage in historical programs, I need to consider the Pledge of Allegiance didn't exist
until 1892 when Francis Bellamy created it. Even then it only started to include "under God" in 1954. Wikipedia omits that the third myth paragraph points to New York as the first state to
require public school students to recite the Pledge daily and that wasn't until 1898, although it was used in public school Columbus Day observances in 1892.
Dear Betsy, her myth
or reality, which started this series of articles, indeed is explored in the first myth of the article. I don't think she fared all
that badly. My first week's story of the First Flag, however, right before
showing how to cut a five-pointed star, lets the author, Elizabeth Dillingham,
give the meaning of the colors as:red says be brave, white says be pure, the
blue says be true. While the AARP article's second myth's paragraph claims"the
colors do not have, nor have they ever had, any official imprimatur" and
attributes them ultimately to the Union Jack, yet even there the article gives
a contradiction by quoting Charles Thomson, the Continental Congress secretary,
and once again bringing up the Great Seal of the United States
which includes Francis Hopkins, which led to Rivka's initial comment here. Searching a bit further, I found Francis Hopkinson's role was more limited than
Rivka's linked article might have made it seem.
Flag burning became an issue of the 1960s until the Supreme Court in 1989
declared it First Amendment Free (symbolic) Speech. Such symbolic speech,
while not incendiary, certainly seemed to be everywhere over the Independence
Day holiday, violating the 1923 Flag Code. As historian, journalist, and
author of Flag: An American Biography, Marc
Leepson concludes in the AARP article,"There is no Flag Police. You will not
be arrested for wearing a flag-embossed T-shirt on Independence Day — or any
other day of the year."That's good because 21st century patriots and commerce alike seem to feel happy to include it nowadays.
Since our American symbols and
stories have varied from colonial times to the present, it's a story that
depends on when it is discussed. Our ancestors may have been raised on
myths, but it is still worth noting their values shaped our country.
As Pledge creator Bellamy stated in the 1945 Congressional Record: "At the beginning of the nineties patriotism and national feeling was at a low ebb. The patriotic ardor of the Civil War
was an old story ... The time was ripe for a reawakening of simple
Americanism and the leaders in the new movement rightly felt that
patriotic education should begin in the public schools."
Sometimes it reminds me of working with a woman from Hong Kong whose frequent
comment was said in accented Chinese speech as "It's all so
complicated."
Comments are always welcome on my blog even if Blogger's software isn't as receptive to displaying them as I might prefer. The Betsy Ross story about making the first flag sparked an off-the-blog dialog with
New Jersey storyteller, Rivka Willick.
Like me, Rivka tells many a historical program. Being a true lover of her home state of New Jersey, her comment just had to mention Francis Hopkinson and the possibility he was just as likely to deserve the credit for our first flag. She sent me the link about Hopkinson and it's interesting he not only signed the Declaration of Independence, but even has documented design experience for many official designs including working on the second version of the Great Seal of the United States. Still his role in the design of the revolutionary flag has never been confirmed any more than we can be sure about the tale of Elizabeth Claypool Ross.
My own response to that, opening emails back and forth a bit, was: Wondered if anybody was going to count on the possible mythical nature of the story. Of course our Public Domain stories include a lot of that sort of thing and some time I probably need to do an article on it. That's some research that may be overdue or it just may be a case of our storytelling being true even if it's not exactly what happened. Didn't know your specific NJ gentleman, but posted my appreciation for your comment. Wish Blogger let those comments be a bit more visible. Thank
you for your own contribution.
Rivka next mentioned Parson Weems' role in our American "mythology", saying:I keep
finding 'American History for Kids' as 80 parts myth and 20 parts
truth. Parson Weems wanted to write a book about the childhood of our
first president, and when he realized the modesty and styles of the times
didn't collect stories about children, he made them up. If you ask the
average person if the George and the Cherry tree is true, they'll say
yes. If you ask them if it's a myth, more will say yes, few know it's a
fabricated literary story. I have a feeling Betsy Ross might fall into
that category, especially if the designer wanted to get paid. The
early Congress did a lot of nasty things to avoid unnecessary expenses.
If you look into Weems' work, he wrote four books in the first generation of the 19th century titled The Life of (beginning with Washington, then General Francis Marion; Benjamin Franklin, with Essays; and William Penn), but it was The Life of Washington with its cherry tree story, now acknowledged as a myth, which ties his name to Rivka's " 'American History for Kids' as 80 parts myth and 20 parts
truth."
It was why I commented back: Ah, yes, Parson Weems. That and those
Childhood of Famous Americans books certainly produced our American
mythology. My problem is when I'm doing historical reenactment programs
like an old-time rural schoolteacher, that was precisely the material
she used to mold her students. The material could be called moldy, but
it was the character education of our ancestors. The trick is to find
both the truth -- in the sense of facts -- and the value.
LoiS(tarting to feel another project coming on)
and Rivka replied:Sometimes
I wonder if this is the norm of all mythology. A story gets created
and the orginators are forgotten, so we don't know why it was created,
we just have the creation. In the last couple hundred years with all of
our technology creating cheap printed content, we can trace back the who
and maybe even the why. But I think there will be push back because we
crave myth and folklore and maybe we just don't want to know the real
story. Just a thought.
Just a thought indeed.
Rivka had heard yet another interesting story related to Parson Weems, prairie schools, and how this tale of Washington's boyhood honesty and an ax influenced "Honest Abe" Lincoln. It's a funny story for Lincoln had a way with storytelling himself. Come back next week as part of my Keeping the Public in Public Domain series to see what I mean.
As the 4th of July approaches, this is a bit early, but the story of our 1st flag (and how to make 5-pointed stars) needs telling.
I sometimes say I'm Origami-impaired, but even so I love this story. Thank heavens Betsy Ross's uncle knew her talent, including folding a 5-pointed star. This came from the same book, "Tell It Again" Stories, by Elizabeth Thompson Dillingham and Adelle Powers Emerson I mentioned at the start of June. That article is worth another look and the entire book is available at Archive.org, including several holiday stories.
While you're looking back here, remember all the rest of June I had puppetry-related articles and would love to see you at the Great Lakes Regional Puppetry Festival in Detroit, July 25-27. It's not too late, but it was the June focus of this blog to give you plenty of time to schedule it. Hope to see you at my own workshop, A to Z, Puppets Are Easy, so you can...
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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in
Public Domain." The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our
cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were
compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent
on works of the 20th century. My own library of folklore includes
so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from
them. I hope you enjoy discovering new
stories.
At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring
research as part of my
sharing stories with an audience. Whenever that research needs to be
shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that
week. This is a return to my normal monthly posting of a
research project here. Response has convinced me that "Keeping the
Public in Public Domain" should continue along with
my monthly postings as often as I can manage it.
There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, none for
folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection. I recommended it earlier and want to continue to do so. Have fun discovering even more stories!
