Flagmaking Costs

[Peter Ansoff]

The early 20th century saw the publication of many books about the history and lore of the American flag. Most of them were pious regurgitations of the same mythology, and are worthless as historical references. However, every so often they contain interesting nuggets of information. One such is Under the Flag, History of the Stars and Stripes, by S. J. Woelfly, published in 1914. In the section dealing with manufacture of flags for the Navy at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, he discussed foreign flags that were made for use aboard Navy ships:

"The most expensive foreign flag is that of the Republic of Salvador, which costs $52.50 to make. It takes one woman sixteen days to make the counterpart of the flag, which is all done by hand. Next to the Salvador flag, that of Costs Rica is the most difficult and tedious. This ensign, which also has an elaborate counterpart, costs $45., and requires nearly as long a time to complete. These counterparts are hand-embroidered with silk costing $9. per pound, and are executed by a separate corps of women who do nothing else.

"Next to the flag of Costa Rica in point of costliness, is the ensign of the Empire (now Republic) of China. The grotesque mythological monster which is the prominent feature of this flag, is composed of more than one hundred pieces. The dragon is ten feet long and requires twelve days to complete, and the entire ensign costs $51. The flag of Siam costs $38., the monster white elephant which forms the center of the flag adding considerable [sic] to the cost of production, while the ensign of Morocco, a flag of the simplest design, costs but $21.

"United States Ensign No. 1, 36 feet long and 19 feet wide, is the largest flag made in the establishment, and costs $40. But the flag requiring the longest time to complete is the President's flag. It takes one woman a month to embroider the coat of arms which forms the center of the design . . ."

The book does not cite any sources, but the precision of the numbers and manufacturing times suggests that he got authoritative information from somewhere. It's interesting that flags intended for naval use would be made of silk. Of couse, these foreign flags would have been used as courtesy flags, which probably means that they would not be flown at sea for extended periods of time.

This leads to an interesting train of thought with respect to the designs of national flags (which were primarily intended for maritime use). Most of the ensigns of the major maritime powers were relatively simple geometrical designs. Could this have been driven by the time and expense required to make more complicated designs from bunting and/or the unsuitability of painted silk flags for maritime use?

Peter Ansoff

[Peter Ansoff]

This is a scan of the frontispiece illustration from the book that I mentioned in the previous post. Woelfly's introduction states that it shows "The flag waving in the air from out of the dark clouds, as if held by the invisible hand of God, at the time of dawn of morning . . . " However, the orientation of the flag looks very odd to me -- almost upside down. Was there an unintended message here? (-;

Woelfly Frontspiece sm.jpg

Peter Ansoff