Flag of Kentucky

The seal comes first

Kentucky’s seal is much older than its flag. On December 20, 1792, only months after statehood, the General Assembly ordered a state seal showing two friends embracing, with the motto “United we stand, divided we fall.” A Lexington silversmith, David Humphreys, made the first seal and its press for twelve pounds. That seal was later lost when the capitol burned.

The motto came from the “Liberty Song,” written by John Dickinson in 1768, a patriotic ballad of the American Revolution and a favorite of Kentucky’s first governor, Isaac Shelby. Its line “By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall” became Kentucky’s motto.

For more than 150 years artists drew the two friends on the seal in many different ways. In 1962 the legislature settled the question: the seal shows a frontiersman shaking hands with a statesman.

The flag of 1918

The flag came later. An act approved on March 26, 1918, created the state flag: navy blue silk or bunting with the seal at the center, ringed by a wreath of goldenrod. The flag is widely credited to Jesse Cox Burgess, a Frankfort art teacher, though no official record of the design’s origin has been found. The law was rewritten in 1962, along with the seal, and amended again in 2002 and 2009.

What the flag shows

• The navy blue field. The flag is 1.9 times as long as it is wide.
• The seal. Two friends, a frontiersman and a statesman, embracing. The Kentucky Historical Society says the frontiersman stands for the state’s early settlers and the statesman for Kentuckians who served in government, not for Daniel Boone and Henry Clay, as is often said.
• The motto. “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” circles the two figures.
• The wreath. The words “Commonwealth of Kentucky” form the upper half, and goldenrod in bloom, the state flower, the lower half. Together the seal and wreath span about two-thirds of the flag’s width.

Rules for the flag

Kentucky’s flag law goes into unusual detail. A flagstaff flying the Kentucky flag is to be topped with a cast figure of a Kentucky cardinal, the state bird, “in an alert but restful pose.” The flag is dipped to no one except before the US flag, should never touch the ground or water, and should be retired by burning. Official flags bought by public institutions must be made in the United States. And since 2000, Kentucky has had an official pledge of allegiance to its flag.