19th Amendment Flag

Features: 3'x5' Flag Size Single Reverse Print Heading & 2 Brass Grommets Reinforced Edges & Fly End On the flag of the United States, each state in the union is represented by a star. In 1919, the National Woman’s Party led by Alice Paul began sewing stars on a giant purple, white, and gold flag. Each time a state ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, a new star would be sewn on the flag. There was room on the National Woman’s Party flag for 36 stars, symbolizing the number of state ratifications required for the amendment to become law. While gold was the only color used by all US suffrage organizations (though white also became widely adopted once parades started), the purple, white, and gold combination was used only by the National Woman’s Party in the United States. The organization described the meaning of these colors in a newsletter published December 6, 1913: “Purple is the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving steadfastness to a cause. White, the emblem of purity, symbolizes the quality of our purpose; and gold, the color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving.”[3, 4] These were the colors used by the Women’s Social and Political Union in England. They adopted these colors in 1908. Purple represented royalty and “the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette, the instinct of freedom and dignity;” white represented purity; and green represented hope and “the emblem of spring.”[a] Alice Paul protested in England with the Women’s Social and Political Union in England, and brought the tactics of their leader, Emmeline Pankhurst, back to the United States. [4]