Free Downloadable Storyboard – Our Flag

Free PDF download of the black and white “Our Flag” storyboard. This is an 8×10 image that we use in our Freedom Gallery.

Softly draped, with folds unstirred by even so much as a breath of summer breeze, Old Glory, OUR FLAG–the flag of destiny–rests, waiting! It symbolizes the soul of America, standing in silent prayer before the Father of Light, receiving His strength and wisdom, asking His guidance and protections through another perilous journey. It is the morning prayer of the America people, the prayer that arms them against the problems of the day with courage and cheer. Before it, America stands in reverence, realizing her sacred duty to mankind and her glorious destiny.

The artist, Fred Tripp, of Beloit, Wisconsin, was 71 years of age when he painted the original in 1938. He looked out his hospital window at McCleary Hospital in Excelsior Springs, Missouri and was inspired by the flag flying atop the post office across the street. Our Flag is an oil painting that measures more than six feet in height and now stands in the lobby of the McCleary Memorial Hospital. It is interesting to note that Mr. Tripp never in his life had a painting lesson, yet he produced a masterpiece–an inspiring, compelling expression on canvas of what he felt in his heart and soul about the flag of his country.

Motivated by a spirit of patriotism in 1940, the McCleary Memorial Hospital produced full-color lithograph reproductions of “Our Flag” and presented one to each of their many former patients all over the United States. Since then the popularity of this painting has grown, and McCleary Memorial Hospital has distributed many thousands of prints all over the nation.

The distribution soon became an economic problem. The picture was given without charge as the hospital refused to handle it on a commercial basis. Finally, the hospital began to realize that they had been rather selfish in withholding this masterpiece of art from public distribution and also that such distribution could  in no way reduce it to the commonplace any more than did wide distribution of study of the Constitution of the United States, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, or The Star Spangled Banner.

Evolution of the United States Flag

No one knows with absolute certainty who designed the first stars and stripes or who made it. Congressman Francis Hopkinson seems most likely to have designed it, and a few historians believe that Betsy Ross, a Philadelphia seamstress, made the first one.

Until the Executive Order of June 24, 1912, neither the order of the starts nor the proportions of the flag was prescribed. Consequently, flags dating before this period sometimes shows unusual arrangements of the stars and odd proportions, these features being left to the discretion of the flag maker. In general, however, straight rows of stars and proportions similar to those later adopted officially were used. The principal acts affecting the flag of the United States are the following:

• On June 14, 1777, in order to establish an official flag for the new nation, the Continental Congress passed the first Flag Act: “Resolved, That the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.” Since then June 14 is celebrated each year as “Flag Day.”
• Act of January 13, 1794–provided for 15 stripes and 15 stars after May 1795.
• Act of April 4, 1818, signed by President Monroe–providing for 13 stripes and one star for each state to be added to the flag on the 4th of July following the admission of each new state.
• Executive Order of President Taft dated June 24, 1912–established proportions of the flag and provided for the arrangement of the stars in six horizontal rows of eight each, a single point of each star to be upward.
• Executive Order of President Eisenhower dated January 3, 1959–provided for the arrangements of the stars in seven rows of seven stars each, staggered horizontally and vertically.
• Executive Order of President Eisenhower dated August 21, 1959–provided for the arrangement of the stars in nine rows staggered horizontally and eleven rows of stars staggered vertically.