22: Patriotic Symbols

Patriotic symbols represent a language system with clear associations and meanings. Decoding these meanings involves a significant, yet often overlooked type of literacy. Images of the American flag, a bald eagle, the Liberty Bell, Uncle Sam, and the Statue of Liberty all evoke specific associations. They provide a common language that binds a people together, even though quite often their precise understanding of these symbols is not the same.

Patriotic symbols have evolved over the course of time. They did not simply appear at the time of the American Revolution, but rather, they took seed, grew, and evolved. Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. (1984), for example, in his article “Education and the Iconography of the Republic,” shows how the figure of Liberty was gradually introduced over a 100-year period into the consciousness of American children—only achieving the status it has today in the consciousness of the country’s citizens by the time of the Civil War.