41 Star U.S. Flags (Uncut Printed Group Of Six Parade Flags).
These 41 star United States flags were made to recognize the admission of Montana as the 41st state on November 8, 1889. They were to remain accurate for a period of just three days, until the admission of Washington on November 11, 1889; consequently 41 star flags are extremely rare.
This was printed in running yardage, and is an uncut section from a bolt of 41-star cotton flags. This uncut group of six printed flags is unusual and indicates the fate that befell many of the 41-star flags once they became obsolete after just 72 hours. The stars in each flag are arranged in a vertical pattern: 5-4-5-4-5-4-5-4-5.
The cotton field of each flag is composed of 13 horizontal alternating red and white stripes each approximately 1.25 inches wide. The top-most stripe is red, as is the bottom-most. Inset into the field, and extending through seven stripes from the top downwards, is a dark-blue canton (8.75 inches wide on the fly x 8.25 inches) which is decorated with the 41 stars, 1 inch across, printed on the obverse and reverse sides. The flags are machine stitched, where stitching was required.
The early history of these 41 star flags is unknown; but they were formerly part of the collection at The Flag House and Star-Spangled Banner Museum. Founded in 1927, the Flag House is one of Baltimore's oldest public museums. The Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Association, Inc. was formed in 1927 to operate a museum dedicated to the memory of Mary Young Pickersgill who made the enormous 30 x 42-foot Star-Spangled Banner that flew over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 and inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that became the Union's National Anthem.
Mary Pickersgill's flag still survives and now hangs at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. As one of the earliest institutions dedicated to the study of flags, The Flag House & Star-Spangled Banner Museum also became a repository for flags from other eras, and amassed one of the largest flag collections in the nation.
Publication History:
Madaus, Howard M., Dr, Whitney Smith, The American Flag: Two Centuries of Concord and Conflict.
Santa Cruz: VZ Publications, 2006, p. 101.
Provenance: Acquired by the Zaricor Flag Collection (ZFC0162) in 1996 from the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Collection of Baltimore, MD.
ZFC Significant Flag
Item is Framed
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