“RESOLVED… THAT THE UNION BE THIRTEEN STARS, WHITE IN A BLUE FIELD, REPRESENTING A NEW CONSTELLATION”: CENTENNIAL “BLOOD” STRIPE 13-STAR AMERICAN FLAG
(AMERICANA). Thirteen-star American flag. No place, circa 1876. Cotton flag , measuring approximately 20-1/2 by 15 inches, with stars arrayed in a 3-2-3-2-3 pattern, top and bottom stripes red, blue canton extends to the sixth stripe and rests on a red stripe. Mounted and framed, entire item measures 34 1/2 by 18 1/2 inches.
Centennial 13-star American flag, with the canton resting on a red or “blood” stripe.
On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress set the standard for the new nation's flag: "Resolved: that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." The 13-star Stars and Stripes was official from June 14, 1777, until April 30, 1795, and represented the original 13 states; from that era up to the present there has never been a time when 13-star, 13-stripe flags have not been made and flown. The blue canton "rests on a red rather than a white stripe. Some flag collectors call this red stripe the 'war' or 'blood' stripe" (Druckman & Kohn, 39). A "prisoner's flag" dating from the Revolutionary War has a canton "that rests on the fourth red stripe, or 'war stripe'… The probable original model for this wartime custom, followed during the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, is the Royal Savage flag' [that flew on that Revolutionary War ship]" (Mastai & Mastai, 18, 62, 124).
The 3-2-3-2-3 "quincunx" star pattern (Keim & Keim, 35) of this flag was common between the years 1860-70, although it dates from 1779 (Cooper, Thirteen-Star Flags, 10) and is frequently attributed to Francis Hopkinson, who designed the original U.S. flag (Quaife et al., 40). The stars and canton on this flag are hand stitched, whereas the stripes are machine stitched. Small 13-star flags were a common home project for American families during the Centennial, with instructions printed in journals and kits to create one's own souvenir available for purchase .
Wear and discoloration indicate that this flag was flown outdoors, with early hand-stitched repairs. A wonderful example of a late 19th-century flag, handsomely framed.