Introduction
MS. KATHERINE KEIL: Good evening and, again, welcome to tonight's -- or the presentation tonight. I would like to thank everybody for coming out. Especially thank you to the State Archives and the Friends of the State Archives for hosting this valuable lecture series and inviting me to present tonight.
As she mentioned our program is entitled, Fading Memory: The Missouri State Struggle to Preserve Hist- -- Missouri’s History through Flags.
And tonight I will introduce you to some of the flags in the collection, give some of their unique histories and then talk about the challenges of preserving them in our ongoing conservation efforts.
1:12 History of the Missouri State Museum
But first I’d like to give a little history of the State Museum. It was founded in 1917 as part of the new Capitol and it was originally designated the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall under the director of the state’s Adjutant General. And it was because of our original mission to preserve Missouri’s war trophies and our association with the Adjutant General that the collection came to have Missouri’s battle flags from the Civil War to World War I.
In 1923, the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall combined with the Missouri Resources Hall, which was also located in the Capitol to become the Missouri State Museum. And our mission broadened to include the interpretation and preservation of all of Missouri’s cultural and natural history.
Despite the change in mission and our -- the years that have passed the flags have remained a prominent part of the collection and have grown to 445 flags representing 172 years of Missouri’s history.
2:26 Seminole War Gentry Flag
And the first flag I have for you tonight is from the Seminole War. It’s the oldest flag in the collection dating from 1837. And we refer to it as the Gentry Flag. This flag represents the 1st Regiment of Missouri Volunteers, which was a really pre-cursor to the Missouri National Guard. And it was led by former State Senator, Colonel Richard Gentry of Columbia, Missouri.
And the flag was made by local women and presented to the regiment before they left for Florida to fight the Seminole Indians. Once there, the regiment participated in the Battle of Lake Okeechobee. And it was during that battle that the Colonel Gentry was mortally wounded and the regiment lost 138 men; killed or wounded.
When they returned home to Columbia they took a vote and decided to present this flag to the Colonel’s widow who then possessed it in the family as a sacred heirloom. They decided to present it to the State Museum in 1919 and finally donated it in 1959.
This flag is silk. It has embroidered stars, 26 of them. There is, also, embroidery in the white stripes which is really hard to see unless you’re viewing the actual flag. The regimental designation is painted at the top. And then the regiment’s motto is painted there on the right and as you can see it’s at the bottom of the screen. “Gird, Gird for the Conflict. Our Battle -- Our Banner We Wave High! For Our Country We Live, For Our Country We’ll Die.” And I had to look up what gird meant.
(Laughter.)
MS. KATHERINE KEIL: And it actually means prepare for action. So they’re saying, “Prepare, Prepare for the Conflict.”
This is a large flag. It is 54 inches high and 107 inches long. So it has been conserved, but not framed due to its large size.
4:42 1844 Presidential Election Flags
This flag -- or banner is one of two that represent the 1844 presidential election. This one is from the Whig Party in Missouri and it’s for their candidate Henry Clay also known as the “Great Compromiser”.
It has some of the Whig Party’s platform presented on it. Their platform was for a modern economy, which would have included protective tariffs and for improved infrastructure over -- such as canals, ports and railroads. So not a lot has changed from today.
The other flag in the collection is also from the Whig Party and it says that it was presented by the Whig ladies to the Lafayette County Clay Club. So these flags originated in the Lexington, Missouri, area of the state. This flag is silk with painted decoration and it was conserved and framed last fall.
5:53 Civil War Flags
That brings us up to the Civil War. And the Civil War flags are the largest collection of flags that the State Museum has with 135. And of those, the majority are Union flags and this is because after the war, of course, the Union government still existed and there was a systematic effort to collect those flags and present them to the Adjutant General of the state.
Now, with the Confederacy, of course, the government dissolved and things were not organized. So they went home -- often the flags went home with the veterans and they disappeared over time.
6:36 Union Flags
The first four flags I will show you are all Union flags and they really represent the vast array of styles that could be seen on the Union lines during the war. The first flag on your left is the 34th Star National, which represents the 15th Regiment Infantry Missouri Volunteers. And it’s a veterans’ flag; and what I mean by that is it lists the regiment’s battle honors. And a regiment was eligible for a veterans’ flag once their initial term of enlistment had expired.
So if they enlisted at the beginning of the war and were only supposed to serve three months and then re-enlisted they were eligible to carry this veterans’ flag had they participated in any engagements by that time.
Veterans’ flags could take on the national or a regimental or they could be a supplementary flag. We have several in the collection that are just blue. They’re embroidered with the Missouri State Seal on them and then embroidered with the battle honors.
The 15th Regiment’s flags -- flag shows that they fought at Pea Ridge, Chickamauga, Nashville and Boonville. So they saw quite a few bloody battles. The flag on your right is standard Union regimental. And this flag represents the 18thU.S. Colored Infantry and they were raised from African-American men from all across Missouri in September of 1864. And not mustered out until February of 1866. And they -- their flag shows their one battle -- battle honor up there in the upper left corner of Nashville.
These two Union flags are very unique. They represent ethnic groups that raised regiments in the state. The flag on the left is for the 7th Regiment Infantry Missouri Volunteers better known as the Irish Regiment. This regiment was organized in St. Louis of mostly Irish immigrants, in June of 1861.
And Irish imm- -- or Irish regiments were often given special dispensation to carry regimental that wasn’t the standard. They would choose the kelly green with painted decorations that really represented their culture, heritage and traditions. So this flag is painted with the Irish harp in the center. There’s also an Irish wolfhound that you really can’t see here tonight, but if you were looking at the actual flag would show up a little bit better. And then it’s surrounded by a wreath of shamrocks. And the back has a Gaelic phrase on it, which I will not attempt to pronounce because I would butcher the language.
This regiment and flag participated in the Siege of Vicksburg and the flag went on to be one of the ten most recognizable flags of the Civil War because of its presence at Vicksburg it was also published in Harper’s Weekly either during the war or shortly after. And it was carried in a victory parade of eastern cities after the war. It’s a beautiful flag and we’re grateful to have it. We just wish we had the other half.
The flag on the right is a regimental and it represents the 3rd Regiment Infantry Missouri Volunteers. And this regiment was also referred to as Lyon’s Regiment and that stood for General Nathaniel Lyon who was very instrumental in raising this regiment of mostly German immigrants from St. Louis. And it was raised in April of 1861 in an effort to preserve Missouri in the Union. And the regiment participated in the capture of Camp Jackson and the Battle of Wilson’s Creek.
Now, when this flag went to the conservator all those letters that you can clearly read there, now, were jumbled up in the center and we really had no idea what it said beyond that it was connected to the 3rd Regiment. The conservator really pieced it back together and made a beautiful effort out of what was a mess.
In the center there you can see part of a gold frame. The rest of it is missing. The conservator believes that that was probably a portrait of General Lyon, but we cannot be sure because, of course, there’s no pictures and there’s no written description that we can find. Both of these flags are silk with painted decorations and have been conserved and framed.
12:03 Confederate Flags
Next we have the few Confederate flags in the collection. We have seven in all. Only four of which represent Missouri regiments. Two actually represent Arkansas regiments with an unknown connection to Missouri. And one, we call the Beauregard’s Rifle Flag, because beyond telling that it’s a Confederate flag that’s all it says and we really don’t know its connection to Missouri either.
But I have a few examples here. On the left we have the flag of the 1st Cavalry Missouri Volunteer, CSA, and that pattern that you’re seeing is actually often referred to as the Missouri Battle Flag.
And this flag here was captured at Black River in May of 1863 by a member of the 11th Wisconsin Regiment. And it was sent back to the war -- or back to Wisconsin where it remained after the war and eventually made its way to the Wisconsin Historical Society. In 1943, they graciously decided to return it to the state of Missouri. They presented it to the governor who gave it to the State Museum for the collection. And we are grateful to have it back.
The flag on the right represents the combined 2nd and 6th Regiments Infantry Missouri Volunteers. And this style of flag is known as the Army of Northern Virginia Style Battle Flag and this one, too, is a veterans’ flag representing their battle honors such as Vicksburg, Corinth and Elkhorn to just name a few. Both of these flags are wool or linen with applied decoration. The flag of the 2nd and 6th has been conserved and framed while the flag of the 1st Cavalry is now currently at the conservator.
And the final Confederate flag I have for you tonight belonged to General John S. Marmaduke, himself. He used this flag to designate his headquarters during the war. And this crescent moon and Roman cross patterned flag was made and presented to the general by a woman in Arkansas in 1863.
Now, in the following year the general was captured along with his flag and held for, I’m not quite sure how long, by the Union side, but when he was released as a prisoner it was custom to return the flag of an officer to him. So he was given his flag back and the flag remained an heirloom of the family until it was presented to the Adjutant General by Marmaduke’s niece in 1920. This flag, what’s left of it, is made of silk with appliquéd decoration and it, too, has been conserved and framed.
Beyond the Civil War the collection does contain many national and regimental flags from the Spanish-American War from Missouri’s participation in the Mexican Border Conflict and from World War I.
15:39 Spanish-American War Flags
We also have several foreign flags that were often brought back to the United States by veterans as souvenirs of their service. The flag on your upper left is from the Spanish-American War and it represents the 1st Regiment Infantry U.S. Volunteers.
16:00 World War I Flag
Whereas, the flag on the bottom from the 129th U.S. Field Artillery is from World War I. And it is actually the unit that a young Captain Harry S. Truman participated and served in Company D.
16:17 Cuban National Flag
The flag on the far right of the screen is a Cuban national. And this blood stained flag was actually presented by Cuban veterans of the Spanish-American War to Missouri veterans of the war when they returned to Cuba to commemorate the 30th Anniversary. It was later donated to the museum by a veteran in the 1930s and we were very happy to find it during the inventory.
16:54 World War I Service Banners
The museum also has a large collection of World War I service banners that represent the various counties of the state. And these came into being when the Missouri General Assembly wanted to honor Missouri World War I veterans with a display in the Capitol. And the Blue Star Banner concept really came out of World War I so they thought that was a fitting tribute.
And they asked the county superintendents of schools to spearhead this program to raise the funds and oversee the production of their county’s flag. They were given some guidance on what they should look like, but the final pattern was up to them.
In the end, in 1924, 68 counties presented banners to the Adjutant General for display in the Capitol. Over the next decade, though, 14 more flags kind of straggled in as people visited the Capitol, saw the flags and decided that their county needed to be represented. So we now have a total of 81 banners. And that is including the City of St. Louis, which you can see on the upper right there.
We also have two state banners to represent the service of the entire state, as on the left. Now, some of these banners are very simple. They consist of just like the state banner a large blue star and then the number of men who served. And then if any member of that county was killed while in action they’re represented by a gold star and the number.
Some counties took it one step further and placed a ribbon on the flag listing those members who were killed in action or an extreme few listed every single service member from their state -- or from their county, sorry. It was -- some counties were quite a few names. But when we found that during the inventory we did take the time to record all those names and enter them into our database in case family members called and wanted to know if their loved one was represented and we wanted to be able to tell them. So that’s very interesting history there.
And one county in particular, Clinton County, actually produced 23 real gold stars and had them engraved with the names of the men who were killed from that county; it’s a beautiful flag. However, I didn’t put a picture up there because it really doesn’t do it justice.
19:51 Missouri State Flags
And finally, the Missouri State Museum appropriately enough has many Missouri State flags. This one here was flown in Vietnam and it was actually saved by a Missouri native who was serving with the 1st Calvary division during the Vietnam War. And as he recorded the history of this flag he stated he was there during -- or in 1972 when the U.S. Military was de-escalating its presence in South Vietnam.
And at that time, they were starting to turnover military bases and equipment to the South Vietnamese. Well, all nonmilitary items including the flags were set to be destroyed. When this serviceman heard of this potential destruction of the Missouri State flag on foreign soil he was quite upset and went and retrieved the flag and he held it in his possession for the next 20 years donating it to the State Museum in 1992.
We have another state flag not pictured here, but that one was flown over Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan during the recent Operation Enduring Freedom. It was sent to the governor by a sergeant in 2004 and the governor sent it on to the museum to be part of the collection.
21:25 Ongoing Conservation
Now, that you’ve heard and seen some of the flags that are in the collection, I will talk about our challenges in preserving them and our ongoing conservation efforts. Our conservation project has really focused on those flags from the Civil War and earlier due to their age and their -- the extreme amount of time that they spent on display in the Capitol. They are really in the worst condition.
When they were brought to the Capitol in the 1920s, they were furled on their poles and put in these wood and glass cases. While that was great for visitors to come and see and pay honor to the veterans, it didn’t do the actual flag any good. They were exposed to large amounts of light and changes in temperature and humidity, all of which are very harmful to silk fibers.
Silk is inherently weak anyway when it is combined with painted elements and heavy embroidery it tends to shatter over time and just fall to pieces. So they were left relatively untouched in these cases for the next 80 years.
22:56 WPA Conservation Project
The one early conservation project that was undertaken by the state came in the 1930s when the Works Progress Administration was formed and the idea was to put women to work preserving the flags and hopefully keep them for another 100 years. What they did, at that time, was they laid the flag on a linen backing. They placed a mesh netting over top and then they sewed little knots through the flag all over. And my audience helper will -- helpers will actually pass out samples of this so you can get the feel of it.
Some documentation does remain from this project and it’s interesting to read. One details that a Civil War flag took 25,130 stitches and a total 192 work hours. And for that the women were paid 28 cents an hour for a total of $53.75, which is just staggering.
Now, those women did net most of the Civil War flags, all of the Span-Am flags, all of the World War I flags and you can tell a difference between which flags were netted and which flags were not. The main difference is the flags that were netted they still shredded. They still turned to dust, mostly, but all the pieces, all the bigger pieces, were contained within that netting so when we send them off to the conservator today, they have much more to work with than the flags that weren’t netted. Those went poof. They went to the bottom of the cases and then it’s like a jigsaw puzzle trying to figure out what flag they actually go with. So there was one benefit that came out of the WPA project.
25:11 General Assembly Conservation Appropriations
Our recent conservation efforts picked up steam in 1986 when members of the Civil -- St. Louis Civil War Roundtable visited the Capitol and were kind of disgusted at the deteriorating condition of the flags. They then approached the General Assembly and asked them to make a one time appropriation to get the conservation efforts going.
They did so and we were able to send the first flags to the conservator. Those -- that first flag that went in 1986 cost $3,000 to preserve. Today, all conservation is paid for solely out of the museum’s portion of the Park, Soils and Water Sales Tax.
26:04 Flag Collection Inventory
In 2007, we kind of took a step backwards and did the first complete inventory of the flag collection that had ever been done. And that helped us determine exactly what flags we had in the collection. We were working from -- prior to that from a list that the Adjutant General made in the 1920s and we weren’t really sure how accurate it was. So the inventory was very beneficial to the museum. I enjoyed working on it because it was like Christmas everyday I unrolled a flag and was like, oh, cool.
At that time we also made the decision to remove all non-conserved flags from the Capitol to help stave off further deterioration. They were taken out of the cases. We rolled them in muslin material to protect from future light damage and to also give support to those weak and stressed fibers. They are now all currently stored horizontally on racks in our Union Hotel storage area.
The inventory also gave us a better idea of what priorities we needed to -- for the flags to go to the conservator and it has made that decision process a lot easier.
I will talk now about the steps that the conservator takes when they receive the flag. Up in the upper right hand corner is a flag that was netted by the WPA and that flag is actually in pretty good condition. We wish all of them were that stable. The flag in the upper right was never netted. When we looked at that one to go to the conservator last fall we were so afraid to unroll it that we sent it to the conservator like that and let the professionals do it.
28:10 Conservation Steps
The conservator gets the flag. They look at the condition. They see whether it was netted or maybe for that flag that was rolled up they have to humidify the pieces and get them to relax so that they lay flat again. They then, also, look and see what kind of materials it was made of. Is it silk? Does it have painted decoration? Is it embroidered? That all is -- plays a role in how they treat that flag.
Once they’ve determined all those elements they write up a treatment proposal and they send it back to the -– the treatment proposal to the museum for approval. Nothing -- no work occurs on these flags until we have approved what they’re going to do.
Generally, we have no objections so work begins. They start with a light vacuuming just to get the surface dirt off. They then set out to remove that WPA netting and this is the most time consuming and costly step in the prog- -- or process because they have to cut each one of those little knots. Remember I said 25,000 knots in that one flag.
The Museum actually decided that maybe we could save some money if we trained some staff members in how to do this so we went out to the conservator and they showed us how to remove that netting. And in the three years since we have undertaken removal of netting from three small, little Cavalry guidons there and it -- it went fairly smoothly as each -- with each flag we’re getting more adept at it. So we really do think that that will reduce the cost for us.
Next, the conservator uses a material called stable text to stabilize the flag and my audience helpers will pass out a sample of this as well. And you’ll really feel the difference between the 1930s materials and today. And what they do is they sandwich the original flag between two pieces of this and any loose elements or pieces they sew around it to keep them in place and in pos – -- stable. It’s very important to emphasize they sew around it. They do not sew through it--
MS. KATHERINE KEIL: -- and that means that everything that they are doing today is 100 percent reversible. They are not damaging the flag. So that in 20 years if the conservation methods improve they can take this all apart and do those new, improved methods.
At this point, the conservator gives the client the option of extending the stable text out past what remains of the original flag. They do this in an effort to show its original size and to make it a little bit more visually appealing. This Marmaduke flag is actually a very good example of that. You can see the navy blue and the darker white is the original portions of the flag. All of that light blue and the bright white are the stable text. And you can imagine without that there you wouldn’t really get a sense of what that white shape was in the center of the flag. So we opt to do that because it is a lot better looking.
But they do, do this different color because they don’t want to give the appearance that this is the original flag in any way. Also, when they do this it makes a heck of a lot easier to frame a square flag rather than that jagged piece that’s left there, which makes it easier to store.
The next slide shows a flag from start to finish. This is that flag that went to the conservator on the pole. They started by unrolling it and then relaxing those pieces in the upper ri- -- left-hand corner. As you can see, it was pretty broken up where the silk had been painted, but most of those pieces were still there so they were able to reform the image that you see on the right.
And you can see that there are some pieces of the paint missing. And it’s very important to point out that pieces that are missing of the paint they don’t recreate that either because again they don’t want to give that false representation that all of the flags survived.
Finally, the last step in conservation, today, is to frame the flag. Now, this wasn’t always the case. In the 1980s, the flags were sent back just in that stable text. And they were really meant to go into flat storage. There was no real provision made for exhibiting it -- these flags. And that was, you know, a real shame. They’re beautiful flags, they tell a great story. And we paid a lot of money to conserve them. People should be able to see them.
So in the last ten years or so it’s really become an acceptable part of conservation to frame the flags in preparation for exhibit. It does pro- -- give some amount of protection to the flags when we’re moving the flags we’re not actually handling the flag itself, we’re handling the frame. The one drawback to framing is that it does take up more storage space and we will eventually be hampered in the amount of flags that we can conserve just because we’re running out of space.
34:26 Preservation Challenges
The next slide, please. This is a great segue into our challenges of preserving these flags. Challenges include stabilizing past damage. In the past, before museums became more professional and there was standard methods adopted artifacts went on display and they stayed up on display for decades. And this is particularly harmful for textiles. Light can do a lot of damage in a little amount of time and we have a perfect example of that up there with the Warren County Service Flag that is -- as you can even compare to Madison County there extremely faded and really just turning to powder. That will take a lot of money to conserve.
The next challenge to preservation is adequate environmental controls. Temperature and humidity play a vital role in preserving artifacts. Any amount of fluctuation beyond two degrees can cause a mold outbreak. And we have experienced that at the State Museum during the 2007 flag inventory. We actually discovered that about 100 flags were growing mold. And upon further investigation the building was growing mold. So that cost us several thousand dollars to clean the building and then vacuum each of those flags. And that’s an example of one of our staff members working up there. It’s a very tedious job.
A third challenge for us is storage space and proper storage space. Currently the museum has three main storage areas. The Union Hotel where most of the flags reside and two in the basement of the Capitol, well, actually they’re under the walkway of the Capitol. And in that space we do have a leaky roof and water pipes running over the collection. And in the past pipes have burst and they have damaged conserved Civil War flags, which then needed to go back to the conservator and be cleaned costing, again, thousands of dollars that could have been used to preserve other flags.
We’ve also had smaller leaks damage county service flags such as Madison County there. You can see the stain down the left hand side. Now, that could go to the conservator and they may be able to clean some of that, lighten it up a bit, but it’s never going to look original, which is a shame because that could have easily been prevented.
Our storage areas are very cramped. We have to have everything stored in cabinets because of the condition of the roof and the pipes above. Cabinets take up space. The frame storage takes up space and the lack of space is really going to hamper our ability to continue to collect Missouri’s history and to preserve it.
In the end, if the Museum cannot guarantee proper storage conditions and care for the artifacts then the citizens of the state are in grave danger of losing their history. Missourians cannot afford to risk these artifacts and the -- let the memories associated with them fade or be lost entirely to future generations.
As citizens of the state of Missouri and as history enthusiasts as I hope you-all are, if you’re attending this program tonight, we need to voice our concerns. Therefore, my challenge to you tonight is to see the Missouri State Museum collection as your collection. It is your history that we are struggling to preserve. And ultimately you can decide its fate.
I ask you to, please, follow me back to the State Museum over the next few days, weeks and months and see what I’ve been talking about for yourself and to raise your voices collectively to help us in our struggle to preserve your history.
(Applause.)