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To Whom It May Concern:
I love your program so far - I just had a question/comment. In the course about "Flag Facts," it says that the 13 stripes stand for the original 13 states but I believe it should be the original 13 colonies. Am I correct?
Thank you so much for this wonderful tool!
-TV
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So, what do the stripes on the US flag represent?
HomeSchool Advantage used as our source for the US flag questions, the preparation material created by the US Department of Homeland Security for students who were taking the Naturalization Test, which gave our answer:
http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/Flashcard_questions.pdf .
However, a new version of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exam gives TV's answer:
http://bit.ly/aDGsO8
Clearly, this is going to be a bit more difficult. To defend our answer, the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner had 15 Stripes!
http://americanhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner
They added stripes when we added the states Kentucky and Vermont. Clearly, they were originally thinking that the stripes represented States. Although, for the Star Spangled Banner Flag, Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana are missing. Technically, they were states by the time of the assault on Fort McHenry in 1814.
Would the founders say the stripes represented the colonies? Did the original states intend to create a flag that reminded them of their time of colonial servitude or of their independent statehood! I, for one, say independent statehood.
However, the early Republic clearly had a problem. It is one thing to add a star to the flag every time a new state is added to the Union, and another to add a stripe. So they stopped adding stripes at 15. After the war of 1812 an Act of Congress created the basic structure of our current flag. Perhaps to not provide the British so large of a target in any future engagements. I looked up that act to see if it would say what the stripes were to represent, even HomeSchool Advantage is willing to defer to a definition that was an Act of Congress.
An Act to Establish a Flag of the United States
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So, what do the stripes on the US flag represent?
HomeSchool Advantage used as our source for the US flag questions, the preparation material created by the US Department of Homeland Security for students who were taking the Naturalization Test, which gave our answer:
http://www.uscis.gov/files/
However, a new version of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exam gives TV's answer:
http://bit.ly/aDGsO8
Clearly, this is going to be a bit more difficult. To defend our answer, the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner had 15 Stripes!
http://americanhistory.si.edu/
They added stripes when we added the states Kentucky and Vermont. Clearly, they were originally thinking that the stripes represented States. Although, for the Star Spangled Banner Flag, Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana are missing. Technically, they were states by the time of the assault on Fort McHenry in 1814.
Would the founders say the stripes represented the colonies? Did the original states intend to create a flag that reminded them of their time of colonial servitude or of their independent statehood! I, for one, say independent statehood.
However, the early Republic clearly had a problem. It is one thing to add a star to the flag every time a new state is added to the Union, and another to add a stripe. So they stopped adding stripes at 15. After the war of 1812 an Act of Congress created the basic structure of our current flag. Perhaps to not provide the British so large of a target in any future engagements. I looked up that act to see if it would say what the stripes were to represent, even HomeSchool Advantage is willing to defer to a definition that was an Act of Congress.
An Act to Establish a Flag of the United States
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=003/llsl003.db&recNum=0456
Unfortunately for us, the Act is silent on the matter of what the 13 stripes actually represent. So, it is left to interpretation.
Does anyone know of an original source document from a founder saying the stripes represent the colonies or the 13 states?
What do you believe the answer to the question should be?
Can you support your answer with documented evidence? (No, wikipedia will not count in this case).
The beauty of HomeSchool Advantage is that we can leverage our highly educated community to improve both our questions and our answers! We want to hear from you!!!
Unfortunately for us, the Act is silent on the matter of what the 13 stripes actually represent. So, it is left to interpretation.
Does anyone know of an original source document from a founder saying the stripes represent the colonies or the 13 states?
What do you believe the answer to the question should be?
Can you support your answer with documented evidence? (No, wikipedia will not count in this case).
The beauty of HomeSchool Advantage is that we can leverage our highly educated community to improve both our questions and our answers! We want to hear from you!!!
what do the 13 stripes on the flag mean, i cant find it!!!!
ReplyDeletei kinda like wiki answers better
ReplyDelete