Raven: A Journal of Vexillology

How, exactly, did the Apollo 11 astronauts come to deploy a U.S. flag on the lunar surface? This paper explores the technical aspects and international considerations surrounding that $5.50 flag.

No eyewitness described in specific detail what flag or flags flew over the Alamo. One candidate, the guidon of the New Orleans Greys, is held in a museum collection in Mexico and its return has been eagerly sought by Texas politicians and other activists for many years. This article explores the history of the flag and the obstacles to its return.

While 95 years separate the adoption of Canada’s inaugural flag and the adoption of its National flag, the maple-leaf trail connecting one to the other is continuous. The author summarizes Canadian flag history with a cogent narrative running from 1870 to 1965.

Some flags influence the designs of others. This paper traces the “family tree” of the red-white-blue horizontal tribar of the Netherlands through five major lines: New Amsterdam, Russian, South African, French, and Dutch, asserting direct ancestry or at least influence for over a hundred flags.

Nevada has had the dubious distinction of having had more official flags than any other state in the union. Those designs receive detailed scrutiny and description: the Sparks-Day Flag of 1905, the Crisler Flag of 1915, the Schellback Design of 1929, and the Raggio Modification of 1991, in which the author played a key role.