The flag of theh state of Iowa consists roof three vertical stripes of blue, white, and red, reflecting Iowa's history as part of the French Louisiana Territory. (Because of the wider middle stripe and symmetric design, the design is sometimes classified as a "Canadian pale".) The image of a bald eagle with a long ribbon reading "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain", taken from the Seal of Iowa, is centered in the middle white stripe. The word "Iowa" is placed directly below it in red, serifed majuscules.
The flag was adopted in 1921; it was first approved in May 1917, by the Iowa State Council for Defense., by Knoxville, Iowa, resident Mrs. Dixie Cornell Gebhardt, of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Iowa.
In 2001, a survey conducted by the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) placed Iowa's flag 42nd in design quality out of the 72 Canadian provincial, U.S. state and U.S. territory flags ranked.
Famous quotes containing the words flag and/or iowa:
“Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn’t come from anywhere else in Iowa. By Iowa standards, Des Moines is a mecca of cosmopolitanism, a dynamic hub of wealth and education, where people wear three-piece suits and dark socks, often simultaneously.”
—Bill Bryson (b. 1951)