The History of the Birthday of Our Stars and Stripes

Our American Flag represents democracy, freedom, liberty, the unity of our nation, and the love for our country. The flag stands for everything that our nation’s soldiers fight for, past, present, and future. The fifty stars represent the fifty US states, the blue field behind the stars stands for perseverance, justice and vigilance, and the alternating red and white stripes represent the thirteen original colonies. As George Washington said, “We take the stars from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing Liberty.”


The Father of Flag Day, Bernard John Cigrand was very proud of his country and its flag. So proud in fact, that in 1885 in a one room schoolhouse called Stony Hill School in Waubeka, Wisconsin when he was just nineteen years old, Cigrand declared that June 14th should be the birthday of the American Flag. He dedicated his life to instilling children and all Americans with the same patriotism and love for our flag and country that he held in his heart. In the book, The Real Bernard J. Cigrand: Father of Flag Day by James L. Brown, it is said that Cigrand made 2,188 speeches around the country about patriotism and our flag and June 14th being instated as its birthday. Later, Cigrand became the president of the American Flag Day Association and the National Flag Day Society. A statue of his bust stands at the National Flag Day Americanism Center in Waubeka, Wisconsin and Stony Hill School is now a historical site. 

On June 14th, 1889 another school leader, George Bolch, the principle of a public kindergarten school in New York, held a ceremony to celebrate the US flag. Soon after, other places began celebrating the flag on June 14th including the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia, the State Board of Education of New York, and the New York Society of the Sons of the Revolution. In 1893 J. Granville Leach, historian of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution, suggested that the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames of America make June 14th the official day for all citizens of Philadelphia to exhibit the American Flag. The suggestion was recognized two weeks later and Flag Day became a day for celebration in Philadelphia where people gathered in Independence Square to sing patriotic songs, carry flags, and make speeches. Pennsylvania was the first state to legalize June 14th as Flag Day in 1937. 

Many people, leaders, organizations, mayors, and five presidents have fought to make Flag Day a national holiday. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge both made recommendations for the nationalization of this holiday. Finally, in 1949 Congress approved of making Flag Day a nationally celebrated holiday and president Harry S. Truman signed it into law.

Today, people celebrate Flag Day all over America. Much celebrated like Memorial Day or Independence Day, Flag Day is celebrated with waving flags, displays of flags in public buildings, parades in major cities, and school dismissal. Flag Day is also a celebration of the men and women in the armed forces who have fought and are still fighting for our country.    

The Father of the American Revolution: Samuel Slater

Samuel Slater was known as the “father of the American factory system, the father of American industry, and the founder of the American Industrial Revolution.” He was born in Derbyshire, England on June 9th, 1768. He became a part of the textile industry in 1783 when he became an apprentice for the owner of a factory mill, Jedediah Strutt. Soon after being apprenticed, he became superintendent of Strutt’s mill.

Six years later in 1789, Slater secretly emigrated to the United States when he found that they were offering rewards for textile information. Britain had forbidden textile workers from leaving for fear that they would share valuable textile information. Slater had dreamed of starting a textile business and since he believed that Britain was at its peak, he found that the US was the right place to be. He landed in New York in late 1789 having memorized textile information to share with America. He took a job at the New York Manufacturing Industry soon after he landed.

In 1790 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Slater and Moses Brown, a Quaker merchant, built the first water-powered cotton spinning mill. At first, workers running on a treadmill powered the machine, but later a waterwheel was added to run the machine. With the development of this machine, came the start of the spinning industry. Slater also built many other textile machines to help improve the industry. He was the first person to emigrate to the US that knew how to build and run textile machines.

In 1793, Slater built the first profitable water-powered textile mill in Pawtucket Rhode Island with funding from Providence investors. Slater easily found many employees. He hired children, adults, and families. Slater built a larger mill on his own in 1797 and called it the White mill. In 1803, along with his brother, he built a little mill village called Slatersville in Rhode Island where he provided housing, a company store, and a large mill where people could work. This idea of creating a “village” for workers, came to be known as the Rhode Island System. This system was copied for years in textile industries in the United States. The cotton industry continued to improve for the next ten years all due to Slater’s revolutionary ideas. Samuel Slater died in 1835 at the age of sixty-seven.

If you would like to find out more about Samuel Slater feel free to check out my sources: http://www.woonsocket.org/slaterhist.htm

http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventors/a/Samuel_Slater.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/slater_hi.html

http://web.bryant.edu/~ehu/h364proj/fall_98/hulton/slater.htm

Memorial Day: A Truly Lost American Tradition

To most Americans, Memorial Day represents the start of the summer, but some of you may be wondering how Memorial Day actually got its start and what Memorial Day was truly meant for. Today I will take you on a journey of Memorial Day from the 1860s during the Civil War to the family barbecues and cookouts of today.

Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day began as a way to recognize the men who died fighting in the Civil War. Memorial Day is celebrated every year on the last Monday of May by most states in America. It was first officially recognized as a Federal holiday in 1971 by Congress, though people had been celebrating Memorial Day since the late 1860s.

No one is quite sure when or where Memorial Day first originated. It is said that the day was started because of all of the gatherings in many different towns and cities by Americans decorating the graves of those who fought during the Civil War, some celebrations were happening even before the war ended. On May 2, 1868 General John A. Logan, “national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic,” first declared Decoration Day to be celebrated later that month on May 30,1868. He announced the day to be one of prayer, celebration, and appraisal for those who had died during the war. On that day, people placed flowers on Confederate and Union soldiers’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery. New York was the first state to recognize the holiday in 1873. By 1890 all of the Northern states recognized the day while Southern states continued to celebrate Confederate soldiers on a separate day.

After the United States became a part of another major war, World War I, Decoration Day became a commemoration day for American men and women who fought and died in all wars. It was then that Southern states began recognizing the holiday, although Texas, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana still have a second day to remember just Confederate soldiers. For 100 years, Decoration Day was celebrated on May 30 until 1968 when Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act which declared Memorial Day to be celebrated on the last Monday of May. Many people to this day still believe that Memorial Day should be moved back to its original date of May 30th so that Americans will be less nonchalant about celebrating the holiday and the importance and uniformity of Americans will be brought back into the day.

Today there are many traditions celebrated on Memorial Day. Many parades take place across America; the largest taking place in Chicago, IL, Washington D.C, and New York. In most parades, some American veterans and current members of the U.S. military walk. Other Americans visit gravesites and honor the military in that way. Yet most Americans hold barbecues and parties to celebrate the long weekend and the start of the summer. Most people have forgotten the true meaning of the original Decoration Day leading us to lose yet another way in which the American people can meet in unison in commonality and equality.  

Metal Wine Racks: Durability and Life

So many choices, when looking to invest in wine you can get confused. The primary concern in a wine investment is picking out a wine. Do you want a red or white or both? Looking at chilling or serving at room temperature? Blend or single blend? Aged (Vintage) or Fresh? These are the important questions one must ask when searching and purchasing for this enjoyable luxury, we call, wine.

An important addition to your wine investment is the purchase of a wine rack in which to store your wine bottles. There are many options on materials to use for a wine rack - wood, plastic or metal. In wine storage is important to preserve the wine that you intend to use in the future. Bottles being as fragile as they are need a durable holder rack. When properly designed a metal wine rack can have both the durability and stylish look you seek.

Have you searched for a “certain look” and can’t find it? Do you feel like being creative and creating your own style of metal wine rack to match your interior designs? Why not submit your creative ideas and drawings to Short Run Pro and design your own, one-of-a-kind metal wine rack with everything you seek, from the design, size and number of bottle holding positions? Submit your ideas to www.ShortRunPro.com today and fulfill your desires of possessing the wine rack you always have wanted to showcase the wine bottles you spend so much time choosing.

Thanksgiving for What?

In horrible times of economic recession and lack of income, job loss and instability it seems hard to find stuff for which to be thankful. But a quick review of the origins of Thanksgiving Day in the United States and its official establishment will give insight into the real meaning of the act of giving thanks.

The original Thanksgiving celebration is traditionally thought to be a three-day feast held by the pilgrims and Native Americans to give thanks for a bountiful harvest in 1621. The same people who had bravely sailed to a new world with nothing but what was carried in their ship held the feast in Plymouth suffered through the hardship of the climate of New England with little or no food and with the help of the local Indians and a good growing season they saw another winter with better provisions.

Thanksgiving was a tradition that the pilgrims carried from their native countries. It was common to give thanks for bountiful provision and success in battle. These people knew the hardships of life in a way that we in a modern age are not accustomed. For them death, hunger, plague and pestilence were everyday fears and to be free from those fears was a reason to be thankful.

The establishment of the official Thanksgiving Day observance in the United States happened in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln set the last Thursday of November as the day that U.S. citizens would give thanks and praise to our “beneficent Father” in heaven. In his own words, President Lincoln summed up the purpose of Thanksgiving:

“No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

It was during the time of the greatest struggle in U.S. history, when brother was fighting brother and American sons were dying by the thousands that Thanksgiving Day was established as an official celebration within the U.S. President Lincoln was a man who carried the weight of the Union that he loved on his shoulders and led through the darkest days of our countries history. Yet it was this same president that had the vision to see the goodness of God through it all and establish a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to God.

There is a connection between hardship and thanksgiving. There is a bond between feeling loss and remembering that which you have been giving. It is in times of despair that people realize all that they have and how grateful they should be for having it. Remember to give thanks this year. Shut off the T.V. Don’t listen to the talking heads. No worries about what the celebrities are doing. Think about what you have been given and give thanks for it.

Patriots Day & the USS Constitution

Last Sunday was Patriots Day, a day to commemorate the anniversary of the first battle of the American Revolutionary War. Patriotism is something that we would like to blog about here at Short Run Pro, although possibly from a slightly different angle. True patriotism is what has infused America, its people and the things we make with the highest quality craftsmanship in the world. We believe that if you love something you will invest your best into it. That is what a patriot does for his country.

As an example of the affects of patriotism on craftsmanship we submit the USS Constitution. This Warship was built and put into service by the United States in 1797 with the Naval Armament Act signed by George Washington. It was listed among six frigates commissioned in the act as the initial step toward a U.S. Navy. The USS Constitution went to work quickly and won all her engagements in the both the Quasi War and the Barbary War. But her most formidable test was to come in 1812 when President James Madison declared war on then Super Naval Power – England. During that war, the USS Constitution, fewer than 3 different captains, defeated five English warships.

It was during the battle with the HMS Guerriere that our warship received her nickname, Old Ironsides. During this engagement it was reported that the British saw their cannon fire bounce off the Constitution’s hull leaving little or no damage. It was thought by the enemy sailors that the boat was constructed with iron sides and hence the nickname. The condition of the two ships may have supported the enemy’s conclusions as the Guerriere was left a smoldering; dismasted hull while the Constitution was intact and sailing. The sides may not have had iron in them but they had a lot of patriotism!

The success of the USS Constitution no doubt surprised the British naval commanders, and it surely came as a bit of a surprised to many U.S. naval commanders as well. But it is far less likely to have surprised the men in the Boston shipyard where Old Ironsides was built. If we go back to that patriotism being connected to workmanship thing you should know that the USS Constitution was built with so much patriotism that she could have floated above the waves if necessary. In a time when being free from tyranny meant something, when that freedom was threatened in what was called the Second War of Independence, the men who built the USS Constitution invested their patriotism in a ship that would defend and uphold their freedom. They built a warship that would not be defeated.

Now at the ripe age of 214 years, Old Ironsides is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat in the world. That is long lasting, quality workmanship. That is made in the USA craftsmanship. We at Short Run Pro believe that the same patriotic craftsmanship that built the USS Constitution and keeps her afloat for over 200 years is alive and well in the hearts of the American worker today. Let the patriot in you be seen today.

For more information on Patriots Day -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriots'_Day

For more information on the USS Constitution -

http://www.history.navy.mil/ussconstitution/

For more information on Short Run Pro –

http://www.shortrunpro.com

Honoring The Railroad and what it has meant to the USA.

At Short Run Pro we love the USA. We love its past. We love it now and we love its future! Sometimes it is beneficial to remember some of the great accomplishments the people of the United States did to make our country great. In this blog we want to remember the railroad!

Pictured is a steam locomotive from the Seaboard Air Line Railroad Company. This particular engine was donated to Charlotte, NC after its permanent retirement in 1959. Locomotives of this type played a critical role in the development of our country and particularly the south and western area of the USA. The service engine pictured was built in 1920. It was retired off of the Gainesville Midland Railroad in Georgia. It was one of the last steam engines in service in the south.

Whether it was the connecting of the Transamerica rail system or the regional duties performed, the railroad has contributed to making our country great. Transportation of equipment and people, moving mountains of building materials, conducting wars, and expanding into new territories has all been part of the railroad’s resume. So we honor the great achievements made by the railroad companies, the workers who ran those companies and the pioneers who laid the tracks that extended this countries opportunities and its people's dreams.