Flag of Wisconsin

How to read it

Section 1.08 of the Wisconsin Statutes (1979, chapter 286) sets a flag 2 high to 3 long with a royal blue background. The coat of arms is on each side in the centre, sized to fit just inside a circle whose diameter is half the hoist. “WISCONSIN” is in white capital condensed Gothic letters one-eighth of the hoist high, centred midway between the arms and the top edge, and “1848” in matching figures midway between the arms and the bottom edge. A yellow knotted fringe is optional. Flags made from 1 May 1981 must follow this design; older ones may still be used. The legislature first provided a flag in 1863, when Civil War regiments asked for one, by Joint Resolution 4, close to the regimental flags already carried; chapter 111 of the laws of 1913 put a dark blue flag with the arms on each side into the statutes. The 1979 act added the name and the date after years of efforts to make the flag more distinctive and recognisable, the Wisconsin Blue Book says.

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The coat of arms piece by piece

Section 1.07 blazons the arms, and the Blue Book explains them. The supporters are a sailor holding a coil of rope and a yeoman resting on a pick, usually taken to be a miner: labour on water and on land. The gold shield is quartered with a plough, a crossed pick and shovel, an arm with a hammer and an anchor, for agriculture, mining, manufacturing and navigation. In its centre is a small US shield with the motto “E pluribus unum”, for Wisconsin’s loyalty to the Union. The shield rests on a horn of plenty, for prosperity, and a pyramid of 13 lead ingots, for mineral wealth and the 13 original states. Above it is a badger, the state animal, and over that the state motto, “Forward”.

Telling it from Michigan’s flag

Michigan’s flag is also blue with the state arms, but its supporters are an elk and a moose and there is no lettering on the field. Wisconsin’s name and 1848 were added in 1979 to make its flag easier to recognise.