Fifty Star Flag Ad – April 4, 1961

If the Democrats succeed in their latest attempt to make Washington, D.C. a state, then the United States is going to need a new flag for the first time since 1960.

As a card-carrying graphic designer (granted, the card says “LORAIN PUBLIC LIBRARY”), I wouldn’t want to have to design a new flag for the United States with an additional star added. The fifty-star flag is just too perfect, too iconic.

But we went through this flag design process before – 27 times – as this USA Today article points out. And who knows? Maybe one of these years, Puerto Rico will become a state as well.

Anyway, it’s a good time to post this full-page ad sponsored by the Lorain Journal, who was making the then-new 50-state flag available for sale as a patriotic service. The ad appeared in the paper on April 4, 1961.

In that same edition of the newspaper, this article ran on the front page.

It was a pretty good deal, since the kit included everything you needed to hang the flag from your house. And it was nice that the hometown newspaper was doing it as a public service.