As we get closer to the Fourth of July, Americans are in a patriotic mood.  Joan Mirantz wrote a blog about a program in New Hampshire that has put 4,000 flags in classrooms in 400 schools.

In the comments, I wondered whether the kids really understand what the words to the Pledge of Allegiance mean, and Joan wondered how many people know the story of how the Pledge originated.

In the years following the Civil War, wounds were still fresh from a war that had been fought to keep the country united.  Great strides were being made in the industrialization of the United States - the railroads, steel and oil industries were in their ascendancies.  Patriotism was beginning to be thought of as a bit old fashioned.  There was a popular school of thought that allegiance to the flag was mere "worship of a textile fabric".

In 1891, in the midst of this era, a man named Francis Bellamy joined a publication called The Youth's Companion.  He was asked by the publisher, Daniel Ford, to put into words the thoughts that Ford wanted to express about loyalty to our flag, and the indivisibility of our country. 

Ford had the idea that the children of the nation were the ones who would carry the American ideals into the future, and he wanted to put a flag in every school classroom in the country.  The only problem was that Ford couldn't quite express what he wanted the children to recite at the beginning of each school day when the flag would be raised. 

1892 marked the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World, and it became a perfect symbolic time for The Youth's Companion to spearhead the campaign to put an American flag in every classroom for the youth of our country.

The full story of how Francis Bellamy came to write the timeless words of the Pledge of allegiance is told here in 1953 in the original author's own words.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands - one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."