Email this page to a friend with a personal messageNational Flag Day was first recognized as a holiday on June 14th, 1877. This was one hundred years after the Continental Congress adopted the flag with the stars and stripes as our nation"™s official flag. The congress asked all public buildings to fly and wave their flags in remembrance of this day.
The public also got excited about the idea and started to fly their flags on June 14th as well. There are a few different claims as to who the early supporters were of this Flag Day, but most credit is given to a school teacher named Bernard Cigrand. In 1885, he was a teacher in Wisconsin who wanted his students to think of June 14th as the flag"™s birthday. He moved to Chicago a year later and wrote an article about it in the Chicago Argus newspaper. After spreading his enthusiasm and writing many articles, he soon got other school teachers and states interested in the idea. A few years later, he had thousands of children"™s support on celebrating the Flag"™s birthday.
It was President Woodrow Wilson, who in 1916, proclaimed officially that June 14th was Flag Day. But, it wasn"™t until 1949 when Harry Truman was our president, that a bill was signed declaring that June 14th was National Flag Day.
Although many may think that National Flag Day is a federal holiday, it isn"™t. It was however, requested in the original signing in 1949, that the President of the United States put out a proclamation observing the day every year and that He ask that all federal government buildings hang the flag in observance.
Although many may think that National Flag Day is a federal holiday, it isn"™t. It was however, requested in the original signing in 1949, that the President of the United States put out a proclamation observing the day every year and that He ask that all federal government buildings hang the flag in observance.
In 1966, the Congress also voted to request that the President make a proclamation stating that the week that June 14th falls in be declared as National Flag Week, in which all citizens fly their flags.
Today there are parades held and flags flown in observance of this holiday. Troy, New York holds the record for the biggest parade turn out every year. In 1937, Pennsylvania was the first and still the only state to recognize Flag Day as a state holiday.
The United States of America"™s flag is one of the world"™s most recognized symbols. For our country it stands for unity, pride, freedom, and democracy. Soldiers wear a symbol of the Flag on their uniforms when they go fight in combat to keep up their morale and to remember what they are fighting for.
No matter who you are or where you are from, if you are a citizen of the United States, the Flag should mean something to you. In case you forget sometimes, that is what National Flag Day is there for. Remembering the past and where we have come from and the struggles our country has gone through is the only way to ensure that we appreciate each other and our country enough to keep going in the right direction.
The flag is symbolic. It has the thirteen stripes representing the thirteen original colonies, and the fifty stars representing our fifty individual states all coming together as one united force. It makes a great statement, not only for our country and history, but what we are portraying to other countries. If not at any other time in the year, let us take that one day, June 14th, to think about what it meant to us then and what it means to us now. There is a reason we are called the United States of America and there is a reason for our flag. Let"™s all take the time on National Flag Day to try and remember what those reasons are.
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