To the Flag

Winner: Langum Prize Gustavus Myers Book Awards, Honorable MentionFor over one hundred years, it has been deeply ingrained in American culture. Saluting the flag in public schools began as part of a national effort to Americanize immigrants, its final six words imbuing it with universal hope and breathtaking power. Now Richard Ellis unfurls the fascinating history of the Pledge of Allegiance and of the debates and controversies that have sometimes surrounded it.For anyone who has ever recited those thirty-one words, To the Flag provides an unprecedented historical perspective on recent challenges to the Pledge. As engaging as it is informative, it traces the story from the Pledges composition by Francis Bellamy in 1892 up to the Supreme Courts action in 2004 regarding atheist Michael Newdows objection to the words under God. Ellis is especially good at highlighting aspects of this story that might not be familiar to most readers: the schoolhouse flag movement, the codification of the Pledge at the First National Flag Conference in 1923, changing styles of salute, and the uses of the Pledge to quell public concerns over sundry strains of radicalism.Created against the backdrop of rapid immigration, the Pledge has continued for over a century to be injected into American politics at times of heightened anxiety over the meaning of our national identity. Ellis analyzes the text of the Pledge to tell how the very words indivisible and allegiance were intended to invoke Civil War sentimentsand how with liberty and justice for all forms a capsule expression of the American creed. He also examines the introduction of under God as an anti-Communist declaration in the 1950s, demonstrating that the phrase is not mere ceremonial Deism but rather a profound expression of what has been called Americas civil religion.The Pledge has inspired millions but has also been used to promote conformity and silence dissentindeed its daily recitation in schools and legislatures tells us as much about our anxieties as a nation as it does about our highest ideals. Ellis reveals how, for over a century, those who have been most fearful about threats to our national identity have often been most insistent on the importance of patriotic rituals. Indeed, by addressing this inescapable paradox of our civic life, Ellis opens a new and unexpected window on the American soul.