Potential change in Maine state flag receives support, could benefit businesses
Photo / Maureen Milliken
The increasingly popular "1901" state flag is being considered as the official state flag in the Maine Legislature.
The Maine Legislature is, for the second time in three years, considering a bill that would change the state flag to the increasingly popular "pine tree and North Star" version.
The bill left the State and Local Government committee Feb. 10 with a divided vote, and now goes to the House chamber. A date on when the House will take it up hasn't been set.
"I think it's unifying," said Rep. Sean Paulhus, D-Bath, the bill's sponsor. "I've seen that flag on houses much more than the official Maine flag."
That was the message, too, from testimony at the committee's public hearing Feb. 3, including from businesses that said it will boost their sales while also focusing on Maine's special brand.
"This is a great opportunity to help Maine strengthen its brand as a premier destination to visit and to live with a symbol that is as unique and special as our state," Bill Swain, owner of Skowhegan's Maine Stitching Specialty Co. told the committee. His textile company makes flags, among other things, but outsources digital printing work.
"If the original flag design is restored, we intend to purchase the equipment to do all the work in our shop. This will also result in new jobs and enable us to make the State of Maine flag entirely in the state of Maine," Swain said.
Jeremy Hammond, of Dirigo Flag Co., of Bath, told the committee, "With so much pessimism and division going on, adopting the first Maine flag is a positive gesture we can make toward unity and building community.
"Millions of dollars are spent year after year on flag paraphernalia for other state’s and city’s flags," he said. "The official blue Maine flag is rarely found flying at homes or on personal merchandise, unlike the flags of California or Colorado. COVID-19 has limited our economic opportunities; please support this legislation that might expand them."
Paulhus said that's the major point — a flag that's symbolic of Maine that catches public attention and would help boost Maine and its economy. The flag — with a buff background, green pine tree and blue North Star — was the state flag from 1901 to 1909, before it was replaced by a version of the current flag. That one displays the state seal, a mariner and a farmer, and the state motto "Dirigo," which is Latin for "I lead."
Everyone's symbol
Maine Flag Co., in Portland, which began producing hand-sewn applique versions of the flag in 2017, created a separate brand, Original Maine, three years ago just to market it after its popularity took off. The company now also makes other products, like a wildly popular trucker's hat with a patch showing the symbol.
Maine Flag Co. owners Chris Korzen and Bethany Field, who are not a part of the current push in the Legislature, said that while theirs was the first business to manufacture products with the flag, they don't own the symbol.
"Our mission is to promote the symbol," Korzen said, including hoping that other businesses prosper from it, too. He and Field said their only concern is that the flag should unify, and divisive debate would defeat the purpose of the proposal.
Opposition to a similar proposal in 2019 focused, in part, on the fact that the mariner and farmer would go away, and with them, a nod to Maine's heritage. But none of the 13 people who spoke Feb. 3 opposed the bill. There have been other efforts to change it, in the 1970s and 1990s, that also failed.
While the official state flag is ubiquitous on state property, the simpler flag over the past few years has caught the imagination of state residents and tourists alike. Paulhus said a new flag would mean that the state seal, which wouldn't change, would still be used on state property, but the new flag would also fly, spreading out ways the state can be represented.
Maine's first official flag
The pine tree and North Star flag was the first official flag of the state when it was adopted in 1901, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told the committee.
While her office isn't taking a position on the bill, she also said there's no record of debate when the flag changed to the current one in 1909.
"Symbolically today, flags remind us of our unity as one people engaged in a common cause, and of surviving difficult struggles together," Bellows said. "The design of the flag is made meaningful by the people who embrace it. The lack of debate in the record means we do not know why the flag was changed in 1909, which leaves us only to speculate. But it also frees us to make own choice for what would be a best and most appropriate flag for the state today. "
Paulhus, who was on the Bath City Council when that city debated changing its flag several years ago, pointed out that the change "isn't creating anything new," and it also meets criteria for what a flag should be — symbolic and evocative.
"This isn't a new design," he said. "It's a historic design."
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I agree it looks kind of washed out and unofficial. But please no dead crustaceans.
I'm all for a distinctive image with historic roots, but can't we do better that THAT for the profile of a pine tree? It looks more like one of those ludicrously "disguised" cellphone towers. Also, for the history buffs: the early twentieth century fad of adopting state flags with a navy blue background ("seal on a blue bedsheet" style) was, at least in part, a patriotic nod to the semi-standardized form of regimental flags in the Union army during the American Civil War. I'm not making a point, just passing that along.
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