Flags

Postcard featuring the statement, “I Suppose if I Vote for Roosevelt I Can Stick Around on My Job”. The word Roosevelt is in a large red and green pennant flag on the left side of the postcard and a cartoon drawing of a police officer is on the right. On the reverse is a handwritten note to Henry Losier that states “Solid ‘Bull Moose’ Here. Get Busy Henry!”.

Comments and Context

The postcard was most likely produced in 1912 during the presidential campaign in which Theodore Roosevelt would run as a member of the Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party. Roosevelt would lose the election to Woodrow Wilson.

Collection

America

A patriotic demonstration will take place on Friday, May 18, and a flag purchased by the senior class of 1917 will be raised at Monroe Colored City Public School. Speeches by people of both races will be given.

Collection

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Creation Date

1917-05

President Roosevelt asks Colonel Scott to pass on his thanks for the gift of a flag and his appreciation for the good work. The general orders issued by Scott pleased Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-09-04

President Roosevelt is unsure how to respond to S. Weir Mitchell’s novel idea concerning foreign flags, and wants to discuss the matter with Secretary of State Elihu Root before acting.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-24

President Roosevelt asks if the flag in the Navy Department can also be used as the president’s flag in the War Department.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1901-10-12

William N. Freeman thanks Frank Harper for his letter. He discusses a possible daily school exercise of a flag honor guard. He recalls a movement to assign a generic name to American soldiers, as British soldiers are called “Tommy Atkins”. He suggests “Johnny Trump”, and hopes that Roosevelt can endorse the idea. He would like to meet Roosevelt and give him a handshake.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-09-20

William N. Freeman informs Theodore Roosevelt about New Jersey’s law requiring schoolchildren to salute the flag and asks for his support.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-09-14

The Japanese flag of the Imperial Navy with a Japanese man’s head in the center appears on the horizon of the ocean.

comments and context

Comments and Context

It evidently was not only West Coast newspapers, like the sensationalist San Francisco Examiner of William Randolph Hearst, that provoked anti-Japanese sentiment at the turn of the century. A cartoonist named Robert Isbell, plugging a hole at the Washington Post left by the departure of Clifford Kennedy Berryman for the crosstown Star, trafficked in xenophobic alarums about the “Yellow Peril.”

Secretary of War William H. Taft and President Roosevelt, who wears a big stick, use an American flag to cover up “Jolo.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-03-16

President Roosevelt holds an American flag with a tag that reads, “let us have peace,” on the globe. The Japanese and Russian flags can also be seen. Caption: The flag of peace: Roosevelt unfurls it over the world.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-09

Photograph of a relocated entrance pylon with visitor center sign and the new visitor center and flag pole visible.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1961

The photograph of the Civilian Conservation Corps camp flagpole was taken at the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area. The photograph is part of a three-binder set of pictures taken by Chandler D. Fairbank, Civilian Conservation Corps North Unit foreman at the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area, taken between 1936 and 1937.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1936-1937

Photograph of an original picture of the Civilian Conservation Corps company standing outside camp buildings during roll call at the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area. The photograph is part a three-binder set of pictures taken by Chandler D. Fairbank, Civilian Conservation Corps North Unit foreman at the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area, taken between 1936 and 1937.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1936-1937

Photograph of James Rockne, Civilian Conservation Corps enrollee in company 2771, holding a guitar in front of an American flag at the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area. Photograph is part a three-binder set of pictures taken by Chandler D. Fairbank, Civilian Conservation Corps North Unit foreman at the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area, taken between 1936 and 1937.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1936-1937

Photograph of three Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees from company 2771 in front of an American flag: John Tandberg (left), Jerome F. Orf (center), James Rockene (right).

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1936-1937

Photograph of Chief James Rouse (Interpretation and Resource Management) and District Ranger Lary D. Barney on horseback holding the flags of the United States and the Department of the Interior near the entrance of the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1966-07-04

Colonel Brownell acknowledges Mr. McDonnell’s letter stating that he presented the flag from Quentin Roosevelt’s training camp in Mineola to Edith Roosevelt. Brownell reminisces about Quentin, remembering how he would wait for letters from his father when he was stationed at the Third Aviation Instruction Center, how he survived pneumonia, and how he had dinner with Brownell at the field hospital the night before he went overseas. Brownell suggests that McDonnell share his letter with Edith Roosevelt.

Collection

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Creation Date

1932-12-05

George F. Hoar, Carl Schurz, David B. Hill, and former Massachusetts Governor George S. Boutwell place their “Anti-Expansion Speech” at the feet of a huge American soldier holding a rifle and the American flag, while opposite them Filipinos place guns and swords at the soldier’s feet. Caption: The American Filipinos and the Native Filipinos will have to submit.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Pughe’s cartoon is a diplomatic portrayal of a rather diplomatic cessation of hostilities and American military withdrawal from the Philippines, where insurrection had raged, with brutality on the “Filipino” and American sides almost from the moment of Spanish surrender in 1898. Senator George Frisbie Hoar (R-MA), the most prominent Congressional opponent of the “pacification” by American troops, had demanded investigation of American atrocities. In 1902 an American Marine was tried for the murder of 11 Filipinos; and an American general was convicted of ordering the death of all males over 10 years old on one of the Philippine islands (he was verbally reprimanded, returned to the United States, and discharged). On July 4, 1902, President Roosevelt ordered the full and complete pardon and amnesty to all Philippine citizens and rebels. This cartoon appeared between the surrender of the last rebel leader and the announcement of United States troop withdrawal.

Columbia sits in a chair with the American flag across her lap. She is holding a star and has a pot of stars and sewing materials next to her. Standing on the left are three male figures representing “New Mexico, Arizona, [and] Oklahoma,” “waiting for their stars” to be added to the flag. The U.S. Capitol building is in the background. Caption: Columbia (to the three territories)–Your stars shall be put on the flag just as soon as those politicians in Congress will let me.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Oklahoma achieved statehood in 1907; Arizona and New Mexico in 1912.

A mob of labor union laborers charge up the steps of the U.S. Capitol. One man carries a flag that states “The (Labor) Union forever! The man who works when we won’t, is a traitor – Kill Him! Unions first, wives and children afterward. All men are equal and the man with brains must be kept down.” The man with the flag is fearfully pointing toward Columbia, who is standing defiant with a sword at her side, the “Declaration of Independence” in one hand, and the American Flag behind her. Caption: The Flag of Freedom will never be displaced by the Flag of Slavery.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Between 1886 and 1921, the United States experienced labor violence worse than any other time in its history, and more severe than in any other country during that period. In 1886 there were violents strikes and protests, and the founding the the Knights of Labor. Through the Haymarket Riot in Chicago that year (anarchists and union organizers, resulting in deaths of police and protesters), the Pullman and anthracite strikes, the rise of figures like Samuel Gompers and Big Bill Haywood, and Communist infiltration of unions in the years after World War I, there was much turmoil. The public’s early and earnest anxieties are reflected in Keppler’s cartoon, which made no attempt at nuance. It is reported that between 1902 (one of the high-water marks of labor violence) and 1904, there were at least 198 deaths and almost 2000 injuries from labor strife nationwide. The main industries that were struck included coal mines; various mining operations in Colorado; teamster crews, especially in San Francisco and Chicago; railroad and rail car manufacturing like the bloody Pullman strike; urban streetcar operations; and the textile and garment industries, as per the Patterson NJ silk workers’ strike. It is arguable that the violent history of this period has somewhat receded from history because the reform measures and pro-worker advocacies of Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement defused many of the complaints against conditions and the system.