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IOWA

Iowa is a constituent state of the United States of America with the nickname of “The Hawkeye State”. The state was admitted as the 29th state to the union on December 28, 1846. The border of the state extends the states of Minnesota to the north, Wisconsin and Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south and Nebraska and South Dakota to the west. The name of the state is derived from the Iowa Native American who were the pioneer inhabitant of the area.

Many US states adopted their own first official flags at the beginning of the 20th century. The Daughters of the American Revolution worked actively on flag adoption for Iowa likely as it was contributing to the other state flags. A white banner with a flying bald eagle along with a ribbon inscripted with the state motto “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain” and name of the state below was the initial recommendation of the organization. The flag was approved by the War Council of Iowa which was completely set up to coordinate state involvement in World War I. Samples were sent along with Iowa troops to Europe without any official recognition by the state of legislature.

The Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans’ Organization put forth maximum opposition to any state flags. The feeling regarding a state flag could contradict the ideal of national unity and the lack of convincing validation to the sacrifice of the veterans in support of the union resulted in avoidance of the term state flags and designation of state banners instead. The banner had the addition of blue stripes along the hoist and red stripes in the fly under the approval of the legislature on March 29, 1921. Finally, the Dixie C Gebhardt designed flag flew over Iowa prior to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 recalling the French Tricolor.