The Kentucky state flag has undergone many changes in design, including different clothing, handshakes, and attitudes of the two representative men. After many attempts, the flag was finally designed as originally intended in 1962, with a frontiersman and statesman shaking hands on a navy blue field with the state motto and flower.
The history of the Kentucky state flag revolves around its chosen symbolism to represent the spirit of the Commonwealth people. Although based on the idea of two representative men embracing in friendship, the figures have undergone many changes in clothing, attitude and types of handshakes. After a lapse of 170 years, with a few mistakes, a fire, possible conspiracies, and history’s delays, the Kentucky flag came to its design as originally intended.
In a young United States, the Commonwealth of Kentucky was still considered the western frontier at the time of its admission to the union in 1792. This sense of being a new state and joining the established United States was incorporated into the state seal and the state flag. of Kentucky. As expected at the time, two men embrace in friendship, one dressed in buckskin, the other in a frock coat and formal trousers. The new state motto was “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”.
A silversmith named David Humphreys was commissioned to make the state seal for twelve pounds. His first attempt didn’t go well. The embrace of the two figures was so close that the face of one of the men was hidden. The original seal was destroyed in a fire in the Capitol building in 1814. Other efforts to recreate the design also proved unsatisfactory, and several versions were attempted and subsequently scrapped.
The sigil was first changed to two formally dressed men embracing, and then became two buckskin men shaking hands. A different version showed two men shaking hands. In an attempt, not well received, two men in cloaks embraced with expressions deemed unfriendly. Along the way, coats, hats and shoes changed styles.
Different forms of hugs and handshakes have also been tried. One showed the men shaking with opposite hands, right and left. This was thought so strange that it was attributed to a possible secret symbol among die makers or outright sabotage intended to discredit Kentuckians. However, even during the civil war, the state kept its idea of two men greeting each other in friendship as a symbol of its flag.
Finally, in 1962, the Kentucky General Assembly passed a law on the Kentucky state flag. He caused the seal of Kentucky to show a frontiersman grabbing his shoulder while shaking hands with the statesman. The frontiersman is a symbol of the spirit of the original settlers, and the statesman is the representative of Kentuckians who serve the state’s citizens in government.
On the Kentucky state flag, the seal is centered on a navy blue field. Above the seal is the legend “Commonwealth of Kentucky” in a semicircle, below in a semicircle is a spray of goldenrod, the state flower. The flag retains the state motto, taken from the lyrics of a popular 1768 song by Maryland patriot John Dickinson. Kentucky’s first governor, Isaac Shelby, was reportedly very taken with the lines of the song, “So unite / Brave Americans all / Standing together / dividing we fall.”
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