U.S. Army Presidential Color, 1912 - 1916.
When this exquisite hand embroidered and heavily fringed silken color was embroidered and inspected in 1912, it became one of three flags or colors used to indicate the presence of the President of the United States. It was one of the final variants used until they were all standardized in 1916 by President Woodrow Wilson's Executive Order.

This flag's immediate predecessors were the colors used by the United States Army to represent their Commander-in-Chief, which had been adopted by the counterpart to the U.S. Navy's presidential flag that was taken on in 1882. The first U.S. Army Presidential color was adopted in 1898 and differed from this color by the field and the center star colors, which were reversed. It had 45 stars around the center star and it was used until 1908 when a similar 46-star version was authorized.

In 1901 when President Theodore Roosevelt, who took a great interest in American symbols, coinage and flags, attempted to rectify the nation's unique situation of having two different flags for the Head-of -State. Roosevelt determined that the U.S. Navy flag was the senior flag and ordered that this flag for the President of the United States would be the Navy's version. Accordingly, the U.S. Army adopted the Navy's flag as well but kept their own definition of "color" and retained the red flag for military purposes.

Instead of abolishing one of the flags, a new third flag was designed and put into use in 1902 (see ZFC 2515). This new flag was intended to be used as a "peace display" only and the other two flags remained in full use, giving the United States three flags for the office of President! Photographic evidence indicates that all three flags were used concurrently.

The situation was further exacerbated in 1912 when President Taft, in an attempt to clarify the situation and abolish the army color, issued Executive Order 1556, which made the color of the background on all presidential flags blue. Instead of abandoning the red color, the U.S. Army simply reversed the colors of the background and the center star. The U.S. Army's new presidential color now had a blue background.

This is the color that was used by the army to indicate the presence of the Commander-in-Chief for military parades and assemblies from 1912-1916. This color (ZFC2592) has a U.S. Army Quartermaster Department label inside the sleeve, which reveals that it was inspected on 12 October 1912. This is significant because it was several months before President Taft left office, which means that there is a distinct possibility that this flag could have been used by the U.S. Army for both Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson between 1912 and 1916.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order that established a single flag for the Office of the President of the United States to be used for all purposes (see ZFC2502 for an example of this flag).

This color is in remarkably good condition; with only some slight fracturing of the silk on either side of the U.S. Arms centered in the red star. The flag is fringed with a rich silver and gold plated wire fringe as was used on all U.S. presidential colors until the 1970s. This army presidential color is from a time when the nation was still forming a national opinion of the office as America assumed a more dominant role on the world stage. It was intended for domestic military use only and would eventually give way to a flag first used internationally by President Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Peace Conference.

Provenance:

• Made by U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, Philadelphia, PA, 1912.
• Used by Administrations of Presidents Taft & Wilson. 1912/16.
• Acquired by private purchase in 2012.
Deaccessed Tom Durbin Collection - November 2023



ZFC Significant Flag

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