Tag Archives: flags

Civil War Manuscript and Rare Signal Books Donated to University of Texas Library

The Flag Heritage Foundation has donated a Civil War manuscript with unique flag documentation, and three rare and valuable early signal books, to the Whitney Smith Flag Research Collection at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.

The most important of these items is the 1864 Memorandum Book of Matthew M. Yorston, gunnery officer of the Union warship U.S.S. Kenwood.

Kenwood was a sternwheel steamer launched in April 1863. She joined the Mississippi Squadron in June and operated on the Arkansas River in the vicinity of Fort Pillow, participating in the capture of Yazoo City that July. She was then sent to the Port Hudson Division and served as a patrol gunboat at Baton Rouge until 1865. After the war she was sold into the merchant service as the Cumberland; she exploded and sank in 1869.

The Memorandum Book records watch, quarter and station bills, fire bills, signal calls, division rosters, daily routine, weekly and daily rations, and internal regulations of U.S.S. Kenwood. There is also a daily log or journal of about 50 pages, now legible only under black light. Most important for flag research purposes are 14 …
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Whitney Smith Flag Research Collection Donation

July 14, 2014

The Flag Heritage Foundation has given $250,000 to establish the Whitney Smith Flag Research Collection at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. This Collection has as its nucleus the matchless library of Dr. Whitney Smith’s legendary Flag Research Center in Winchester, Massachusetts, which with the Foundation’s help was transferred to the University on Dr. Smith’s retirement and is now publicly available to scholars for the first time. It is hoped and expected that the Collection, in its new home at Austin, will develop into a world center for research into flags, symbolic expression, and state and political symbolism, and will attract further donations of research material by scholars and collectors in the years to come.

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Forster Flag sold

The Flag Heritage Foundation sold the Forster Flag in April 2014, and is applying the proceeds of the sale to fund the Flag Heritage Fund at the University of Texas. This gift will allow the Flag Research Center’s vast collection of books, pamphlets, files, papers and documentation about flags, their history and meaning to find a permanent home at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University’s flagship campus in Austin. This collection, assembled over many decades by Dr. Whitney Smith, the foremost scholar in the field, is the greatest of its kind in the world, and we hope and expect that it will form the nucleus of a great public center for study and scholarship.

Information about the development of the Whitney Smith Flag Research Center Library at the University of Texas, and about the Flag Heritage Fund, will be posted here as circumstances warrant.

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Austrian Flag donation

June 12, 2013

The Flag Heritage Foundation and the Military History Museum in Vienna, Austria are pleased to announce that the donation by the Foundation to the Museum of an original Austrian cavalry standard 1769 patterned from the time of Maria Theresa (1740-1780) has been completed successfully.

The Flag Heritage Foundation, founded in 1971 and now located in Danvers, Massachusetts, USA, is a non-profit organization dedicated to flags and flag study. Its main purpose is to preserve flags and flag-related objects, to collect, organize and disseminate information about flags and related symbols, to promote public knowledge about the history of flags, and to cooperate with individuals and institutions sharing these interests. The Flag Heritage Foundation is a constituent member of FIAV, the International Association of Vexillological Associations.
Further information can be found on the Foundation’s website www.flagheritagefoundation.org.

The Military History Museum (Heeresgeschichtlichen Museums) in Vienna belongs to the Ministry of Defense. It is one of the most important military history museums in the world, situated right in the center of the Arsenal. The Museum was built from 1850 to 1856 and was thus the city’s first museum. In five major sections …
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