It’s well-known that many early American flags had 13 stars, representing the 13 colonies that declared independence from Great Britain in 1776. Less well-known is that the United States never mandated a design for those flags. That’s what makes a new show at the Museum of the American Revolution, in Philadelphia, so compelling.
The layout of the 13 stars on this flag, dated between 1850 and 1876, is known as the Trumbull pattern, after John Trumbull, an artist and Revolutionary War soldier who served as George Washington’s aide-de-camp and painted the future first president alongside flags bearing this configuration.