Dictionary:

flag¹

  (flăg)

1. A piece of cloth, usually rectangular, of distinctive color and design, used as a symbol, standard, signal, or emblem.
2. National or other allegiance, as symbolized by a flag: ships of the same flag.
3. A ship carrying the flag of an admiral; a flagship.
4. A marking device, such as a gummed strip of paper, attached to an object to attract attention or ease identification; a tab.
5. The masthead of a newspaper.
6. Music. A cross stroke that halves the value of a note to which it is added.
7. A distinctively shaped or marked tail, as of a dog or deer.
8. Computer Science. A variable or memory location that stores true-or-false, yes-or-no information.

1. To mark with a flag or flags for identification or ornamentation: flag a parade route; flagging parts of a manuscript for later review.
2. 1. To signal with or as if with a flag.
   2. To signal to stop: flag down a passing car.

[Origin unknown.]

A plant, such as an iris or cattail, that has long sword-shaped leaves.

[Middle English flagge, reed, of Scandinavian origin.]

1. To hang limply; droop.
2. To decline in vigor or strength: The conversation flagged.

[Possibly of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse flögra, to flap about.]

A flagstone.

To pave with slabs of flagstone.

[Middle English flagge, piece of turf, from Old Norse flaga, slab of stone.]

A technical charting pattern that looks like a flag with a mast on either side. Flags result from price fluctuations within a narrow range and mark a consolidation before the previous move resumes. Likewise, "pennant" formations are usually treated like flag formations because they are very similar in appearance, tend to show up at the same place in an existing trend, and have the same volume and measuring criteria.

Investopedia Says:
Flags and pennants are among the most reliable of continuation patterns and only rarely produce a trend reversal. The only difference between the two patterns is that a flag resembles a parallelogram (or rectangle) marked by two parallel trend lines that tend to slope against the prevailing trend. The pennant, however, is identified by two converging trend lines and more horizontal which resembles a small symmetrical triangle. The important thing to remember is that they are both characterized by diminishing trade volume and though different, the measuring implications are the same for both patterns as demonstrated in the above illustration.

Related Links:
Here we pay some attention to the triangle, usually one of the first chart patterns that a novice technician learns. Continuation Patterns - Part 1
Take a closer look at flags and pennants, which show a very short pause in the trading activity of the prevailing trend. Continuation Patterns - Part 4
Capture quick profits with the powerful directional biases of these two patterns. Consolidation - Trade The Calm, Profit From The Storm

Technical chart pattern resembling a flag shaped like a parallelogram with masts on either side, showing a consolidation within a trend. It results from price fluctuations within a narrow range, both preceded and followed by sharp rises or declines. If the flag-the consolidation period-is preceded by a rise, it will usually be followed by a rise; a fall will follow a fall.

1. Notation placed on a hard-copy or computer file record that marks it for special handling or indicates that some action has occurred, such as selection of the record for a mailing test panel.

2. Title or logotype of a publication printed on the cover page, such as "M" for "the magazine of the civilized male."

3. Graphic device used on package labels and other promotional pieces to highlight a brief message such as "30¢ off regular price." Also called pointer.

noun

Fabric used especially as a symbol: banderole, banner, banneret, color (used in plural), ensign, jack, oriflamme, pennant, pennon, standard, streamer. See substitute.

verb

To communicate by means of such devices as lights or signs: semaphore, signal. See express, words.

verb

1. To become limp, as from loss of freshness: droop, sag, wilt. See better/worse.
2. To lose strength or power: decline, degenerate, deteriorate, fade, fail, languish, sink, wane, waste (away), weaken. Informal fizzle (out). Idioms: go downhill, hit the skids. See increase/decrease, strong/weak.

Definition: decline, fall off
Antonyms: do well, increase, rise, strengthen

[very common] A variable or quantity that can take on one of two values; a bit, particularly one that is used to indicate one of two outcomes or is used to control which of two things is to be done. “This flag controls whether to clear the screen before printing the message.” “The program status word contains several flag bits.” Used of humans analogously to bit. See also hidden flag, mode bit.

For more information on flag, visit Britannica.com.

A flagstone.

Flags are the most pervasive symbol of allegiance in American society. While the American Stars and Stripes is the most ubiquitous symbol of loyalty, flags exist for every state in the union, each branch of the federal government and military, and for corporations, ethnic groups, religions, and almost any other social organization. Flags, especially the American flag, embody the core myths and ideals that undergird society. Unlike monuments, flags are often inexpensive, easily portable, and adaptable into myriad forms. Known popularly as Old Glory, the American flag inspires deep reverence and perceived attacks on it have provoked powerful passions. At the same time, the Stars and Stripes is used as a secular label on shopping bags, articles of clothing, car bumper stickers, and dozens of other consumer items and advertisements. Although displaying the flag epitomizes patriotism, Americans have long contested both flag standards and conceptions of its power. Myths surrounding the creation of the flag that are now hotly contested—including its invention by seamstress Betsy Ross—reflect the important place the Stars and Stripes holds in the imagination of the United States. This article will review the emergence of a national flag and discuss the many controversies that have attended it, with some attention paid to similar disputes over state flags.

Emergence of the Stars and Stripes

During the colonial era, Americans owed allegiance to the flags of England, France, and Spain. As the European powers gradually withdrew during the era of the American Revolution, the rebels of the thirteen colonies initially borrowed the flag of the imperialist East India Company as their own emblem. During the American Revolution the Americans used several flags, but none carried any national authority. American naval forces adapted the British Union Flag but added thirteen stripes in the field. Benjamin Franklin's cartoon of a snake divided into thirteen sections also was converted to cloth, with the motto, "Don't Tread on Me." Another reptilian image, used by the rebels after a naval victory, was a yellow cloth with a coiled rattlesnake about to strike. On 1 January 1776, General George Washington unveiled the Great Union Flag. This flag, with thirteen red and white stripes and incorporating the British Union flag, served without congressional sanction throughout the Revolutionary War and flew over Manhattan during the American occupation in the summer of 1776. But the American colonists were rebelling against the Crown, and soon rejected the Great Union Flag's crosses of St. Andrew and St. George. On 14 June 1777, the Continental Congress finally adopted a constellation of thirteen stars in place of the crosses, and thus invented the Stars and Stripes. Although the Great Union Flag fell into disuse, production of the Stars and Stripes was slow, and it was not generally available until nearly the end of the war. The new flag was most widely used at sea, where ships needed it to identify their nationality.

During the 1790s, as new states were added to the Union, there was some debate over the need to add stars. As the number of states grew to fifteen by 1794, one critic contended that in a hundred years there might be as many as one hundred stars, and that some permanence was needed. A second flag act, passed on 7 January 1794, fixed the number of stars at fifteen; Congress barely avoided passing legislation that would permanently restrict the number of stars. Congressmen at that time were far more concerned about the views of their voters than with building a national image; after all, there was no army or navy, and few Americans ever saw the Stars and Stripes. This change settled the matter for a quarter of a century.

Flag devotion increased after the siege of Fort Maher during the War of 1812 and the composition of the poem "The Star Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key. Using a tune borrowed from the anthem of the English Anacreontic Society (composed by John Stafford Smith), Key created a rousing patriotic song that reflected the seething anger of Americans toward the invading British. On 4 April 1818, Congress, recognizing that the old flag was now obsolete as it was five stars shy of the number of states, set the number of stripes at thirteen and agreed to add stars as needed. With this change, Congress subtly changed the meaning of the flag and recognized the march of manifest destiny across the continent. Even reflecting this imperialist consensus, the flag was not generally recognized or used. The U.S. Army had its own flag until 1834, when it determined to use the Stars and Stripes as the garrison flag and various banners of prescribed size for each regiment. Examination of textiles, china, glass, and wallpaper produced during the antebellum period shows use of the flag, but an even greater preference for the image of General Washington, personifications of Lady Liberty and Columbia, and the bald eagle. There was no full-time American flag manufacturer until the onset of the Mexican-American War in 1846.

Protecting the Flag from Challenges

The greatest challenge to the Stars and Stripes was the adoption of the red, white, and blue Stars and Bars by the seceding Confederate States during the Civil War. Variations of the Stars and Bars existed until the rebel congress passed a third Confederate Flag Act, just weeks before its final surrender in 1865. The Southern threat had the effect of making the Stars and Stripes into a popular flag, rather than one used solely by the government. After the surrender of the Stars and Stripes at Fort Sumter in the first battle of the Civil War, flags bloomed all across the North. The tattered remains of the flag from Fort Sumter were raised in a patriotic ceremony in New York City and were used as a recruiting device throughout the war. Popular magazines such as Harper's Weekly began publishing images of the Stars and Stripes weekly. Military songs such as the "Battle Cry of Freedom" became popular; that song used the line: "We'll rally around the flag, boys!" The war provoked angry outbursts against the flag as a symbol of the Union, and violators were harshly punished. One man, convicted of trampling on the flag, was hung in New Orleans, although President Abraham Lincoln removed the presiding general a few months later.

Patriotic fervor continued after the Civil War. With the rapid industrialization of the north and west, the Stars and Stripes was depicted in patriotic bunting and on advertising materials for bicycles, door mats, tobacconists, whiskey barrels, and porcelain spittoons and urinals. Such perceived abuses provoked the organization of the Flag Protection Movement (FPM), which flourished from 1895 to 1910. Lobbyists for the movement persuaded congressmen to back legislation describing the flag as sacred, and to attempt to ban advertising abuses. The FPM succeeded in transforming a secular symbol into a holy relic with the same status as the Bible and Christian Cross. A larger effect was to infuse patriotic loyalty to the flag with theocratic intolerance of other views. The beatification of the flag convinced its supporters—if not blacks, Mexicans, and Native Americans—that the banner had never waved in behalf of tyranny, injustice, and aggression. Backed by such racial and patriotic organizations as the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) and the Daughters of the Revolution (D.A.R.), the FPM built a national consensus that the flag needed to be protected by any means necessary. Beginning with the presidential campaign of William McKinley, politicians learned to wrap themselves in the flag and to insinuate that their opponents were not as patriotic, however doubtful such claims might be. During the campaign of 1896, a few scattered flag-desecration incidents spurred more discussion of laws to prevent them. Rather than focus on the egregious use of the flag by advertisers, legislators at the state and federal level aimed to stamp out the use of the flag by political protestors. A number of newspapers objected to this contradictory trend and pointed to vulgar political uses of the flag, such as tying a cardboard version of it to the horse that pulled a candidate's carriage. However, state courts generally upheld the use of the flag for commercial and political advertising.

Adoption of the FPM's tenets by super-patriotic groups soon led to use of the flag for racist and nativist purposes. Anti-immigrant rallies demanded that new arrivals to the United States "gather under its blessed folds." The G.A.R. began donating thousands of flags to schools and churches. Under such pressure, state lawmakers began passing bills mandating a daily salute to the flag before the start of the school day, and requiring that instruction in the salute be a part of the "melting pot schools" held for immigrants at major workplaces.

Reverence for the flag took on ugly manifestations in World War I: German Americans occasionally were forced to kiss the flag publicly, and a socialist rally in New York City in 1917 was disrupted when a mob forced marchers to kiss the flag. During the Red Scare following the war, the communist party flag was outlawed in numerous states. On 9 August 1925, the Ku Klux Klan advertised its devotion to the Stars and Stripes by marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., with a riotous display of American flags. Children who objected to the daily salute—including Jehovah's Witnesses, who objected on religious grounds—were expelled, an action upheld by the Supreme Court in June 1940 in the case of Minersville School District v. Gobitis. Though a number of newspapers criticized the court's decision, the case opened the way to further persecution of the children of Jehovah's Witnesses. The court affirmed what had become political reality by World War II: patriotism was synonymous with a ritualized obedience to the flag. This new patriotism was strengthened by the American military victory in World War II, with images like the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima. Joseph Rosenthal's photographs of this event formed the basis for the Marine Court Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

The Flag and Protest

Flags and protest became nationally visible during the Vietnam era of the 1960s and 1970s. As Americans gradually became aware of the huge contradictions between government claims and military reality, and the military draft became a specter for middle-class, college-age American males, protest against the war reached high levels of social antagonism. One means protestors used to demonstrate their anger against the war was by burning the American flag. In the year after a public flag burning in New York City's Central Park in April 1967, hundreds of laws outlawing such protests were proposed. These bills arose just as the issue of flag desecration had nearly lapsed into oblivion. The New York City incident and others like it around the country were manifestations of the immense anger many young Americans felt about the war; they defended their actions with claims of free speech for political activity. In one case, an African American defendant named Sidney Street was convicted for burning a flag in anger after the shooting of James Meredith during a civil rights march in Mississippi. The Flag Desecration Act was passed in 1968, making it illegal to mutilate, deface, or burn an American flag. Violators were subject to a fine of $1,000 or a year in jail. Fierce debate over the law and multiple prosecutions followed over the next few years, and the nation was badly divided over the issue. In a narrow decision, the Supreme Court struck down Street's conviction in 1969, based on the belief that he was convicted solely for his angry words. The Court's decision virtually nullified the Flag Desecration Act, upsetting the Court's minority, innumerable congressmen, and other political figures.

The Supreme Court revisited the flag issue only twice in the next twenty years, both times avoiding First Amendment issues by concentrating on vagaries in state laws. It did not squarely confront the issue of flag desecration until the great 1989–1990 flag burning controversy. These cases focused on the members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, a Maoist group, who had burned flags in Texas. The Court determined that flag burners were not necessarily disturbers of the peace, and that the flag did not stand for national unity nor was it a symbol of nationhood. The decision came at a time when (successful) presidential candidate George H. W. Bush was intimating that his opponent Michael Dukakis was less patriotic, and was vastly unpopular. Once elected, President Bush announced a drive for a constitutional amendment, a move seconded by former Dixie Democrat turned Republican, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Both political parties blasted the Supreme Court decision, but legal professionals, including the American Bar Association, and an overwhelming number of newspaper editorialists supported it. Undeterred, Congress passed a Flag Protection Act of 1989; it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1995.

Controversy Over State Flags

While the American flag remained a lightning rod for controversy, state flags also came under criticism. Southern states integrated the Confederate Stars and Bars into their flags not in the Reconstruction period, but as an act of racial defiance during the Civil Rights era. A number of states adopted the symbol of the Confederacy into their state flags during the 1950s in response to the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, which outlawed public school segregation. In the late 1990s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for a boycott of certain southern states until they removed the Stars and Bars from their flags. In South Carolina, the Confederate flag actually flew from the state capital. After several years of controversy and financial cost to the state, a compromise lowered the flag to the capital grounds, although visitors still had to walk past it. A similar boycott in Atlanta floundered, although Mississippi's governor, Robert Khyatt, attempted to remove the Confederate flag.

Contemporary Flag Displays

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 created a renewed, patriotic use of the flag. In the nation's grief, the tattered flag found on the site of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York City became a symbol of national unity, and was flown at innumerable gatherings in the aftermath of the attacks.

Bibliography

Boime, Albert. The Unveiling of the National Icons: A Plea for Patriotic Iconoclasm in a Nationalist Era. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Goldstein, Robert Justin. Burning the Flag: The Great 1989–1990 American Flag Desecration Controversy. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1996.

———. Flag Burning and Free Speech: The Case of Texas v. Johnson. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2000.

———. Saving Old Glory: The History of the American Flag Desecration Controversy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993.

Marvin, Carolyn, and David W. Ingle. Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Quaife, Milo Milton. The Flag of the United States. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1942.

—Graham Russell Hodges

The official banner of a state or nation, often decorated with emblems or images that symbolize that state or nation.

On the U.S. flag, thirteen horizontal stripes (in red and white) represent the original thirteen colonies. The union is represented by fifty white stars, for the fifty states, arrayed on a field of blue. The U.S. flag is sometimes called the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, or the Red, White, and Blue.

Titles 4 and 36 of the U.S. Code govern when, where, and how a flag may be displayed; how a flag may be used; and the proper means of disposing of a worn or soiled flag.

The Stars and Stripes became a popular and revered symbol of the United States during and after the Civil War. The Union's victory over the Confederacy and the return to a united country engendered patriotic fervor that was embodied in this symbol. When large numbers of immigrants entered the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the flag was appropriated as a symbol of nationalism and patriotism by groups that felt that the cultures and customs of the new citizens threatened national unity and security. During the same period, as the advertising industry grew along with rapid industrialization, the flag was commonly used for commercial purposes. Flags or images of flags were used to promote everything from toilet paper to chewing gum. The flag was also appropriated for political gain. In 1896, Republican presidential candidate William McKinley's campaign manager distributed millions of flags for use at McKinley's rallies. The McKinley campaign also distributed buttons bearing the likeness of a flag, as symbols of support for the candidate.

The turn of the century saw the beginnings of a movement to protect and honor the flag. In the early part of the twentieth century, schools commonly required students to salute the flag each morning. Some students refused to participate in the salute, mainly on religious grounds. By 1940, at least two hundred public school students had been expelled in sixteen states for refusing to salute the flag. Many of them were Jehovah's Witnesses, who maintained that any salute to the national flag constituted an act of idolatry and thus violated their religious beliefs. The expulsion of two Jehovah's Witnesses was challenged in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, 60 S. Ct. 1010, 84 L. Ed. 1375 (1940). In Gobitis, a father sued to enjoin the school district from prohibiting his children's attendance at school after they refused to salute the flag. The U.S. district court granted the injunction allowing the children to return to school, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the district court. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts, holding that the school district's requirement that students salute the flag did not unconstitutionally infringe their religious freedoms. Writing for the 8-1 majority, Justice Felix Frankfurter said the salute requirement was constitutional as long as the students' "right to believe as they please, to win others to their way of belief, and their right to assemble in their chosen places of worship for the devotional ceremonies of their faith, are fully respected."

A few years later, the Court reversed its position, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 63 S. Ct. 1178, 87 L. Ed. 1628 (1943), another challenge to mandatory flag salutes brought by members of Jehovah's Witnesses. In Barnette, the Court held that the school board could not require public school teachers and students to salute the flag. The Court said freedom of the press, of assembly, and of worship may be restricted "only to prevent grave and immediate danger to interests which the state may lawfully protect." In a companion case, Taylor v. Mississippi, 319 U.S. 583, 63 S. Ct. 1200, 87 L. Ed. 1600 (1943), the Court overturned the convictions of two people found guilty under a state statute that forbade the dissemination of information advocating refusal to salute, honor, or respect the flag. The Court held that the statute infringed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The Barnette and Taylor decisions signaled the Court's emerging support for the notion that freedom of speech extends to symbolic as well as oral and written speech.

Also during the early 1900s, numerous state laws were passed prohibiting the desecration of the flag or the use of the flag in advertising. Some of these laws were struck down by state courts, but in 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their validity when it affirmed a lower court that had refused to strike down a Nebraska statute prohibiting the use of the flag in advertising (Halter v. Nebraska, 205 U.S. 34, 27 S. Ct. 419, 51 L. Ed. 696 [1907]). The Court said the flag, as an emblem of national authority and an object of patriotic fervor, should not be associated with personal or commercial interests. It held that the Nebraska statute did not infringe personal property rights or individual freedom.

For eighty years, Halter was cited as precedent in cases upholding flag desecration statutes, and these laws stood solidly intact through most of the twentieth century. The laws were invoked frequently to prosecute demonstrators who burned flags to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Between 1965 and the end of the war in 1973, as many as one thousand arrests were made under various state laws prohibiting the desecration of the flag.

The Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of flag desecration laws again in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 109 S. Ct. 2533, 105 L. Ed. 2d 342 (1989). During the 1984 Republican National Convention, in Dallas, the defendant, Gregory Lee Johnson and one hundred others staged a protest outside the convention hall. During the demonstration, Johnson burned a U.S. flag. He was later arrested for violating the Texas Venerated Objects Law (Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 42.09(a)(3) [Vernon 1974]), which outlawed intentionally or knowingly desecrating a flag in a way that some observer might find seriously offensive. Johnson was convicted, but his conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (Johnson, 755 S.W.2d 92 [Tex. Crim. App. 1988]). The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the Court affirmed the court of criminal appeals, holding that Johnson's conduct was expressive communication, a form of speech that requires First Amendment protection. Addressing Texas's claim that it had a legitimate interest in preventing a breach of the peace, the Court observed that no disturbance of the peace occurred or was threatened by Johnson's burning of the flag. The Court also held that the venerated objects statute was subject to the strictest constitutional scrutiny because it restricted Johnson's freedom of expression based on the content of the message he sought to convey. The Court concluded, "We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents."

Many people were outraged by the Johnson decision. President George Bush denounced flag burning and proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn Johnson. The Senate and the House of Representatives passed numerous resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment outlawing flag burning. When it became clear that a constitutional amendment was probably not feasible, Congress instead passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989 (Pub. L. No. 101-131, 103 Stat. 777 [amending 18 U.S.C.A. § 700]), which made it a criminal offense to mutilate, deface, or burn a flag; place a flag on the floor or ground; or walk on a flag. The act did not mention the motive of the actor or the effect on observers of the act. With these omissions, the statute was designed to be content neutral and to pass the most stringent constitutional scrutiny.

The Flag Protection Act was tested in United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310, 110 S. Ct. 2404, 110 L. Ed. 2d 287 (1990). In Eichman, the defendants were arrested for burning a flag in a protest. They moved to dismiss the charges on the ground that the Flag Protection Act violated the First Amendment. The district court dismissed the charges, and the government appealed directly to the Supreme Court. Affirming the district court's findings, the Court reasserted its position that flag burning is expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. The Court conceded that the federal act differed from the Texas statute in Johnson because it did not appear to regulate the content of the message conveyed by the prohibited acts. Nonetheless, the Court held that the government's interest in preserving the flag as a national symbol was implicated under the act only when a person's treatment of the flag communicated a message that opposed the government's ideals. In effect, the act did regulate the content of protected speech. The Court concluded that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea, no matter how disagreeable or offensive that idea may be.

The Eichman decision prompted President Bush to renew his efforts to gain passage of a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration. The measure came to a vote in June 1990. By then, public and political interest in the issue had dissipated, and many members of Congress who had voted for the Flag Preservation Act were unwilling to support a change to the Constitution. The proposed amendment failed by a vote of 254-177 in the House of Representatives and 58-42 in the Senate.

See: religion.

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n.

A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in London -- "Rubbish may be shot here."