- Alfred Råvad's sketches for the flag from a contest from 1892.
- Unofficial flag until 1917
- Twenty-three other icons that were commissioned representing different city departments could be placed on the flag for that department. [6]
Use | Civil flag |
---|---|
Proportion | 2:3 |
Adopted | Original, 1917; additional stars added, 1933 and 1939. |
Design | Argent four mullets of six points gules in fess between two bars bleu de ciel. |
Designed by | Wallace Rice |
The flag of Chicago consists of two light blue horizontal bars, or stripes, on a field of white, each bar one-sixth the height of the full flag, and placed slightly less than one-sixth of the way from the top and bottom. Four bright red stars, with six sharp points each, are set side by side, close together, in the middle third of the flag's surface. [1]
The three white background areas of the flag represent, from top to bottom, the North, West, and South sides of the city. The top blue bar represents Lake Michigan and the North Branch of the Chicago River. The bottom blue bar represents the South Branch of the river and the "Great Canal", over the Chicago Portage. [2] The light blue of the flag's two bars is variously called sky blue [3] or pale blue; [4] in a 1917 article of a speech by designer Wallace Rice, it was called "the color of water". [5] [6]
There are four red six-pointed stars on the center white bar. Six-pointed stars are used because five-pointed stars represent sovereign states and because the star as designed was found on no other known flags as of 1917. [7] From the hoist outwards, the stars represent:
Additional stars have been proposed, with varying degrees of seriousness. The following reasons have been suggested for possible additions of a fifth star:
Per the Municipal Code of Chicago, it is unlawful to use the flag, or any imitation or design thereof, except for the usual and customary purposes of decoration or display. Causing to be displayed on the flag, any letter, word, legend, or device not provided for in the Code is also prohibited. Violators are subject to fines between $5.00 and $25.00 for each offense. [17] However, the United States Constitution, via its first and fourteenth amendments, prohibits this section from being enforced ( Street v. New York ).
The issue of the city flag came into focus during the preparations for the Chicago World's Fair. In 1892, the Chicago Tribune offered a one-hundred-dollar prize for the best suggestion of a municipal color or combination of colors that would symbolize the city. 829 projects were submitted to the competition and the winner was a Danish architect who’d recently moved to Chicago, to design buildings for the World’s Fair, Alfred Råvad (who also used an Americanized spelling of his name, Roewad). Råvada's design proposed red and white as the city's colors and a symbol in the shape of a horizontal letter "Y", representing the Chicago River, whose branches create this branching pattern. The Råvada design became only an unofficial flag and was never confirmed by any relevant resolution, but ultimately became used in the municipal device. [6] [18]
In 1915, Mayor William Hale Thompson appointed a municipal flag commission chaired by Alderman James A. Kearns. Among the commission members were wealthy industrialist Charles Deering and impressionist painter Lawton S. Parker. Parker asked lecturer and poet Wallace Rice to develop the rules for an open public competition for the best flag design. Over a thousand entries were received.[ citation needed ]
The flag was adopted in 1917 after the design by Wallace Rice won a City Council sponsored competition. It initially had two stars until 1933, when a third was added. The four-star version has existed since 1939. The three sections of the white field and the two bars represent geographical features of the city, the stars symbolize historical events, and the points of the stars represent important virtues or concepts. The historic events represented by the stars are the establishment of Fort Dearborn, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, and Century of Progress Exposition of 1933–34.
In 1928, Mayor William Hale Thompson proposed that the stars on Chicago's flag should be changed from six-pointed to five-pointed, as he felt five-pointed stars were more "American". Although the change was unanimously approved by City Council on February 15, 1928, the description of the new design never made it into the city's ordinance books. When the Council voted to add the third star to Chicago's flag in 1933, the vote ended any uncertainty on the shape of the stars by reconfirming them as six-pointed. [18]
The 318th Cavalry Regiment incorporated the flag into their insignia.[ citation needed ]
In a 2004 review by the North American Vexillological Association of 150 American city flags, the Chicago city flag was ranked second-best with a rating of 9.03 out of 10, behind only the flag of Washington, D.C. [19]
The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and the "Blood-Stained Banner", used in 1865 shortly before the Confederacy's dissolution. A rejected national flag design was also used as a battle flag by the Confederate Army and featured in the "Stainless Banner" and "Blood-Stained Banner" designs. Although this design was never a national flag, it is the most commonly recognized symbol of the Confederacy.
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In heraldry, the term star may refer to any star-shaped charge with any number of rays, which may appear straight or wavy, and may or may not be pierced. While there has been much confusion between the two due to their similar shape, a star with straight-sided rays is usually called a mullet in English heraldry while one with wavy rays is usually called an estoile.
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Ald. Raymond Figueroa and others want a fifth star added to the city's flag in memory of Mr. Washington.