Stars Rise: U.S. Flag Adopts 20th Star

Congress standardized the American flag on April 4, 1818, establishing a design system that has endured for over two centuries. The legislation specified 13 permanent red and white stripes, representing the original colonies, and one star for each state in the Union, with new stars to be added on the Fourth of July following a state's admission. At the time of the law's passage, there were 20 states, so the flag carried 20 stars. The legislation resolved a growing design problem. The original flag of 1777 had 13 stripes and 13 stars. When Vermont and Kentucky joined the Union in the 1790s, Congress added two stripes and two stars, creating the 15-stripe flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814 and inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner." But as more states joined, the flag was becoming unwieldy. Adding a stripe for every new state would eventually produce a flag too wide to fly properly. Captain Samuel Chester Reid, a naval hero of the War of 1812, proposed the solution that Congress adopted: keep the stripes at 13 and add only stars. The system proved elegant and expandable. The flag has been modified 27 times as new states joined, each time adding stars while preserving the original 13-stripe design. The current 50-star flag was designed in 1958 by Robert Heft, a 17-year-old high school student in Lancaster, Ohio, who submitted the design as a class project. His teacher gave him a B-minus. When the design was selected by President Eisenhower from over 1,500 submissions, the teacher changed the grade to an A. The flag has flown with 50 stars since July 4, 1960, when Hawaii's star was added, making it the longest-serving design in American flag history.