Flag of Great Star (USA 1818-1819)

In 1818 Congress drew the lesson from the problem of the stripes: a new flag act fixed their number permanently at thirteen, for the founding colonies, and laid down that one star should be added for each new state — always on the 4th of July following its accession. With Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi and Illinois, twenty states had been reached. What the act did not settle was the arrangement of the stars. For almost a century it was left to the maker, and so rows, circles, diamonds and medallions arose side by side. Only in 1912 was the arrangement described in binding form for the first time.

Meaning

The flag shows thirteen red and white stripes and in the blue canton twenty stars that are themselves composed into a single great star. This pattern was called the Great Star and was one of many answers to the open question of how to order the growing number of stars. The thought behind it is the same as in the motto E pluribus unum, out of many one: the individual states together form one shape. Because the law prescribed nothing, such designs flew on equal terms beside plain rows of stars — the same flag, only differently ordered.