 All right, hi, welcome everyone to our talk on the San Francisco municipal flag, its history and a potential new design. My name is Taryn Edwards and I am one of the librarians at the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco. This event has been produced in partnership with the San Francisco Historical Society and the Department of Memory, which is a grassroots group of independent historians, who organize the annual history festival here in the city, San Francisco History Days. Maybe you've attended. It usually takes place in March. This year, however, you can guess why it will take place September 25 through September 27. So if you are not friends on Facebook with SF History Days, you should be. Anyhow, I work closely with both of these entities to provide exciting programming of relevance to the Bay Area community. Now, today we have two speakers, we have John Lumia, who is a regular at Mechanics Institute. He is the founder of the Emperor Norton Trust, which is a nonprofit that works to honor the life and legacy of our city's fair emperor previously known as Joshua Norton. He's also a writer and an activist with a demonstrable interest in history, urban design, and obviously flags. His work has appeared in many local rags. You've probably also seen his most recent article in the Bold Italic. We also have Brian Stokel, who is a bit of a unicorn in that he is a California native. He's also an urbanist, an advocate and a cartographer and a planner for the San Francisco City Parks and Recreation Department. In his personal time, he works to design better flags. And for the last seven years, he's been laboring over a design for the San Francisco Municipal Flag or just a flag. Anyway, after several iterations, we think he's got it right. And I hope that you think so too. He will present his design, the fog and gold flag later for us today. Now, both of these gentlemen have robust online presences and so I will link to their respective websites in the chat room. And meanwhile, the way the event today will work is John will present and then Brian will present their research, and then we'll start the Q&A. Since we have a large audience, please post your questions in the chat room and I will endeavor to fold them in to the conversation. I will mention, however, to the presentations because I suspect that a lot of your questions will be answered there. Meanwhile, thank you so much. And are you ready, John? I'm ready. Great. Am I sharing now? You're sharing. We can see yours. Excellent. Excellent. Good. So this is the original seal of the city and county of San Francisco, which is one that we have now, which was actually adopted in 1859. This image is a very early one that actually appeared in the Board of Supervisors' newspaper reports of 1859, 1860. So right after it was adopted. And these seals are really important because very often in city flags, the seals of the city provide the visual resources for what goes in the flag. In fact, many very traditional flags are just simply the seal slapped on a color and that's just what it is. So you see in the original seal, the phoenix there at the top and the flames and then down there at the bottom. You see the motto of the city. So we're going to go on Paz Fierro and Guerra, which means gold in peace, iron in war. And so if you fast forward to today, you see, this is our current musical flag with the phoenix and the motto. So what we're here today is that in the last several years, there's been sort of a growing appreciation for the role of the design plays in enabling flags to do what they can do, which is simply to unify their populations and place to sort of rally around. And part of what that means is what maybe should go on the flag. Maybe what should not go on a flag to enable to be its best self. And the same sort of flag that we have now has evolved in some ways that don't let it speak maybe as well as it might. And Brian is going to sort of speak to those issues. My job today is to really give us some back stories to exactly sort of how we got here. So here again is that seal. It seems that there are there are newspaper records of a city flag. In 1859, a separate civic flag. When David Broderick died in the duel with David Terry. There's a day of mourning in San Francisco in September 17 1859 and their newspaper accounts of a separate city flag being hoisted from the top of city hall, separate from the national flag. And then there were accounts from 1862 saying that a new flag was it was about to be sort of unveiled. But our story today really begins in 1900. And it seems that about 1900, the flag such that there was a fall out of this use. And later at the time, James feeling came in 1997 and feeling had had come to believe that San Francisco needed a new city flag and he sort of championed this idea in early 1900 feeling submitted an article to a competition for a publisher of Philadelphia called how to make corporations pay their taxes. And this was this article was sort of connected to I think the new city charter process that have been going on in San Francisco at the time. He won the prize for the article $150. As soon as he won the prize he sort of came back to San Francisco and said you know what, we're going to have a competition a civic competition a citizen's competition for a new flag design, and whoever wins. They're going to get the 50 bucks. So that's that's sort of how he did it. And the competition in the first few months actually was a bit of a bust. You know there was there was sort of open ridicule in the papers. The, I got a quote here from the, the SF Chronicle and on March 17 1900 wrote that quote competitors may choose a guinea pig, a rat or a monkey as the central figures they give you some sense of how soon from the papers took it. But eventually the thing did sort of seem to sort of guys and steam, but on March 30 if there was initial unveiling of the 100 designs that have been submitted. And they were sort of all over the board and none really rose to the level and it seems that the citizens selection committee had not really put any limits on the designers to what they should be doing. And so they they went for around to starting on March 30. And at this point, the citizens committee said, Okay, the flag has to have a white background. It can't be more than two colors. It has to have symbolism that is that is specifically related to the city. And it has to have the model. So they put some limits on designers and in doing so they also singled out about 15 of the of the competitors for special mention, basically saying you know these are these are the ones that we serve like, we encourage you to sort of keep on working on your ideas. And one of those, one of those competitors was the artist in john and gamble, john and gamble was a was it was a young artist who's training in San Francisco he had just recently returned from his tour of Paris, and was really sort of on his way and later on, went on to become a very well known California landscape painter, sort of in the impressionist vein. That's where he was and so the competition sort of got restarted and gamble won the prize and so this is this is a sort of stat artist rendering appeared in the SF Chronicle of gambles concept on April 15 of 1900. And here's another version that appeared, you know, very, very similar. Sorry, in the, in the SF call on the same day. And let's see. And so, and so you have this this flag that is attributed to gamble, but not really any pictures of it, or at least they're very very hard to find one of the first pictures that that does. So our bubble up from the surface is this one. This photograph came out in the October 29 issue of the overland monthly and feeling originally 1900 had given the the original San Francisco flag to the police department for safekeeping. And here are the custodians of the flag and eventually over the years, the flag had worn out, got deteriorated. Some damage should happen to it as they had to create a new flag. And so the occasion for this article in November monthly is that a replacement copy has been made. And this article we see one of the few references that credits the design of this flag and not to John Gamble, but to Robert Ingersoll, Aiken, Aiken was a temporary gambles and he was, he was an artist in his own right also trained in San Francisco and in the next couple of years after 1900, he would go on to do his own sort of Paris tour. He was a sculptor. And, and this is an image that appeared a few years earlier. This is just to sort of connect a few dots here. This is an image that appeared in a scrapbook put together by Hamilton, Henry, Dobbin and Dobbin collected all sorts of newspaper clippings and photographs of San Francisco today. And in this particular scrapbook, which is in the California State Library, the materials in it are dated to, to no later than 1927. So here you have that you have that same flag that was replaced in 1929. Here's an image of it from no later than 27, which gives us the sense that that that we had based on the same flag, at least between 1900 and 1929. And here's another article in the SF Chronicle in 1925, crediting this flag to Aiken, saying that he had, he had designed a flag quote before the fire. So, so, so Aiken starts sort of coming into focus. This image is, is the, is the image that appeared, you know, back in April 1900. And this is the one that is, it is most like the design that we just now saw. And my, my best guess is what we're looking at here is, is actually Gamble's competition interest. So this is, this is the design, or this is the concept that he drew himself. So here's, here's, here's Aiken, very well known in San Francisco for having sculpted the victory figure on top of doing, doing monuments in Union Square. And so here's, here's Aiken in in January 1902, designing that figure. Here's the completed figure on top of the duly monument. Aiken is also known very famously for having designed in 1935, the very famous sort of Western pediment, sort of the main entrance to the US Supreme Court building in Washington. The pediment is the, is the sort of the triangular sort of shape above the columns. Inside that space, there are nine sort of monumental figures sculpted represent different things and this was all of Aiken's work. So he was a, he was a very, very well known sculpture sculptor. And so the question then becomes, well, how do we get from Gamble to Aiken? And it seems like the link here is Douglas Tilden. This is Douglas Tilden. Tilden was a sculptor. He was a teacher at the Mark Hopps Hopkins Institute of Art. He was a mentor to Aiken. And, and he was was very famous in his own right. Phelan at that point was was very well known, not only as the mayor, but also as an arts paper. And so Phelan was Tilden's main sort of patron. And Tilden with Phelan's help sculpted the admission day monument which is at Marcus Street in Montgomery Post. We're familiar with many of you. He also sculpted the mechanics monument on Marcus Street at Battery. And my, my best guess is what is happening here because Phelan, because Tilden would have known who both Gamble and Aiken were. And my best guess is that, that, that Gamble created the concept, but it's still needed to be realized as a design. And Gamble was a really designer. He was an artist. He was a precious painter. But Aiken was someone who really had the design skills to always sort of bring that into something that was more refined and would be used in a flag. We don't have very many photographs of that early flag. This is one of the few. This is from 1915. This is the, this is December of 1915 opening day of the new City Hall. And you see there on the left of the American flag and to the right is that is that is that original San Francisco flag. Here's another photograph from October of 1920. This is from from an official SFPD sort of inspection and review that was held every year City Hall may still be, I don't know, but you see the flag there on the right, sort of midfield. And it seems like what what happened in these years was that even though the, you know, this flag was was presented and designed as a city flag, it really was sort of adopted as the police department flag was only brought out on on official occasions, when there would be sort of presentation of the color. And so it was really functioning more as the police flag that it was the city flag and those years, you know, didn't really have city flags anywhere. You know, flag and village of flag poles, if you had a flag flying, it was going to be, you know, the American flag, the national sort of banner. So that's that's in 1920, but this photograph 1915. This shows Mayor James Sonny Jim Roth, dedicating a new firehouse, a commercial in Drum Street, replacing one that burned down in 1906. And you see the banner behind him on the right. This is an SFPD flag that of course looks very, very different to what the city flag have been and what and what the SFPD was using. You see much more traditional heraldic sort of phoenix there and the, the motto is in a very different sort of configuration. And if you fast forward, and so there's that, there's the city flag again from 1900. Here's the one the SF firepower was using. By the time you get to 1928, this is this is one of those same annual review ceremonies and City Hall. The flag there on the right is the police farm flags a little hard to make out in this photograph. But you see there's kind of a bar across the top that actually says San Francisco Police Department. And if you go to the the essay that I think terrible have sort of linked on the event page, there's really nice large versions of these photographs will sort of able to sort of focus in and sort of see how this thing is getting to evolve. Here's a photograph from that same event. You can see a little bit better here that the shape of the phoenix is a little bit different. This is this is the inauguration swearing in of Angelo Rossi in January of 1931. And, and here you have two, two American flags on the right, and then on the left and on the right hand side, there's a police farm flag, and there's a fire department flag there is no city flag, it's just it's just those four flags. So it's a really curious thing, you know, given that we know that that original flag like in hundred was was was recopied in 1929, but yet by 19 by late 1920s. That flag seems to have been sort of ushered off the side. Here's a, here's a tail from that same shot that gives you a little better idea of kind of how that phoenix is evolving and showing that it's it's been sort of the police flag is what's, it's what's being used there. This is an event from from October of 1931. The Chamber of Commerce came to Rossi's offices at City Hall and presented him with three flags, American flag California flag and there on the left, a new San Francisco flag which I hope you can see really bears no resemblance at all. This is what the city flag had been. Here's a photograph that shows Rossi in his office on inauguration day, January 1932, with those same three flags, sort of behind him and a sort of special stand. And again, you see the phoenix is very, very different. It's very interesting to sort of think about sort of, you know, what may have been happening here, you know, you're, you're looking at the late 20s, early 30s. This is coming on. You've got the world stage. The Nazi Party, the Communist Party in Germany are accelerating power. Hitler is rising so it, it wouldn't be all that surprising that some may have begun to feel that this imagery was was not quite American looking enough and that they were sort of reaching for something a little more traditional a little more eagle like. And so, so this is the image that seems to have really sort of, sort of come through through the decade of the 1930s so you still have the elements of the phoenix, the flames, the motto but but but a very, very different sort of look. Now, fast forward 1938. There are a couple things going on here. San Francisco is pairing for the Golden Gate Exposition, which is just started 1939 so they're expecting a lot of visitors. It is a, there was supervised by the name of Adolf Schmidt, who has, who has experienced lots of lots of city beautification projects in connection with this upcoming arrival of all these new tourists. At the same time, there is a new women's chamber of commerce group who initially started out doing a lot of events around commerce industry. But by 1938, they're beginning to sort of expand their remit and doing lots more sponsoring of civic parades, patriotic events, you know, all of this against the background of what is happening in Europe. And it seems like that Schmidt and the Chamber of Commerce are made common cause and they support one of those efforts. It really was the women's chamber of commerce that came along and they said, you know what, what this flag needs is the word San Francisco and bold letters across this flag so everyone will know what what it is. Schmidt, you know, buys in this idea and becomes the champion of that in the world supervisors. So this is 1938 that passed a resolution began to sort of codify what this flag was going to be. And that from now on, the flag was going to have samples across the bottom. It's not until December of 1940 that there's, there's, there's an actual ordinance to that fact, really sort of making this law, using the same kind of language. And then they specify the resolution is quote, a phoenix rising from the flames below which shall appear the motto or on pause Fiarra and Gara, both in a golden hue with the flag itself, bordered with gold. The word San Francisco shall appear horizontally along the lower portion of the flag below the phoenix and the motto in letters of appropriate size, rich blue in coloring. And so we got that. So we went from here in 1930s to this basically the same flag. And what seems to have happened is that that that very oblique language. So we're talking about the flag itself bordered with gold, the intent, the intention apparently the consensus seems to be was for the flag to have what it always had, which is that an actual physical gold fringe, you know, made a fabric. Remember to mean an actual frame that was like sewn into the flag, and then later on printed on the flag or so we we serve now recognize and then looking at for the last 80 years. This flag stay pretty constant through about 2005. Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. This is the flag. Actually, the flag here was designed by the paramount flag company. There were two main sort of flag manufacturers in the city of the time, the paramount company and the Emerson flag manufacturing Emerson design, which has some differences you see the flames are sort of more curved and organic. The phoenix is a little bit different. The, the, the motto ribbon is in gold and the letters at the bottom are serif as opposed to being sort of a sand serif design. It seems like these two flags were being used sort of in parallel through about the mid 1960s, when the mayor, I believe George Christopher said, you know what the paramount flag that's the that's the one so so that was the one you should begin to see. 2005. This is sort of a more modern interpretation, where you see the, the phoenix is becoming a little more cartoon like the beak is sort of puffed out a bit more. There's there's a little little tweaks around the edges. And then, and then we get this design, which which came in 2008. This one actually you don't you don't really see on flags at all you see it on on letterhead and posters and various things like that. And one thing that that really happened here. You notice all along there's been that sort of ropey braided figure right right below the flames that was always a part of the flag going back to 1900 in fact it's a part of the city seal. And it's a it's a it's a heraldic element that got taken out. And then the beak closes. It's a little more snooty. And that's where we are today, which is a very different place that we were in April of 1900. So I'm going to pass over Brian and he's going to. He's going to take us to be up to the future. All you. Right. Let me get this up. Thank you john. Great introduction on the history. Thanks to the mechanic Institute for having us here. So, my story starts in around 2013. Here we go with the flag again. I think I'm going to go through some basics of flag design but I'm not going to belabor it is this where we left off. Just so everybody knows this isn't codified in any legal sense but there is the vexological society that has put it together that a good flag should follow these principles, keep it simple, maybe so a kid could draw it, make it meaningful. Have two or three basic colors, no lettering or seals and be distinctive or related and I'd say, I note that in my opinion, the meaningful symbolism and being distinctive are the most or related are the most important, followed by keeping it simple. What that means is that there's a few great flags in the world like national ones that actually break this. I don't have the images but I don't think many kids could easily draw the UK's Union Jack very easily, but we might all admit that it's a bit distinctive and meaningful because it's about the unification of Scotland, England and Ireland. So these are the principles but there's a number of flags that will actually not meet all of these. So when it's actually before the famous Roman Mars talk from 99% invisible that there was a bit of chatter on Twitter, and I started thinking about, Hey, what should, what are the basics of a new flag. It's about city pride and the current flag as Roman Mars and we've all been discussing may need some help from a design standpoint it's got too many words on it, you don't have the American flag with the words United States of America on it. That would seem pretty silly we know it's the American Frank it's a symbol. And it was actually before the Roman Mars talk that the bold italic in 2012 showcase shorty fat says redesign of the flag. He kept the Phoenix motif and the motto and putting the words on San Francisco but depending on the adjective you want to use he modernized it in some fashion. So that's in 2012. The next year, partially in response to that blogger or Internet personality as some have called him Brito justice said hey let's make it simple. So a kid can draw it. So here's his rendition keeping with the Phoenix thing basically an update of the current flag. And that's when I chimed in I thought the Phoenix. Yes, it's important but let's not be beholden to a Phoenix. Maybe something totally reimagine would be good. There's fog and there's bridges. Why not use this T search design, not mine, where you show some sense of flag, some sense of fog and the Golden Gate Bridge or a suspension bridge motif. I never. And that's about when I started dabbling with many different ideas and I focused on what I noticed physically about San Francisco was its fog, its bridges it steep hills, as well as the bay in the ocean. Now there's places with all of those but that's the combination of those that I'd say is symbolic to us and we experience and is identifiable. So this is one of my earliest versions where I overlaid some sense of fog on the top with a very big sense of a suspension bridge over water. Then I tried to get a little creative throw in the Phoenix, the wavy lines or the fog. The red is actually almost the background is a silhouette of the shape of the Golden Gate Bridge and then the yellow started out as a pillar but then it kind of transformed into the Transamerica pyramid but it, you know, some people said they liked it but it never got anywhere that popular and nor did these designs. This is more simple with fog rolling over a Golden Hill for a Golden History. This is I kept trying to simplify it. This is a suspension span with a bit of fog covering it with the water and golden skies. I tried to go off, off totally designing but then everybody's like I love the design but it doesn't mean San Francisco. And then I said hey, let's make it as simple as possible fog run a little bit of distinctive gold. I actually think this one works whether it connects to people the San Francisco is an open question. Lastly, I saw a photograph online that showed a view of Ocean Beach, and I just said I'm going to go full fog, and this is with the fog, looking out to the ocean so you've got a foggy sky, dark blue waters, and a grey sand because ocean is not that gold and the gold's just thrown in saying hey maybe it's sunset we've got a golden history. But let's get back in 2018. So basically between 2013 and 2018 I was working on this and then I saw John's article in 2018, and that was around I was feeling like I was somewhat frustrated with my designs even though I thought some of them looked all right. And then I thought, wow, that what you just heard from John there's this amazing history of a previous flag. Yes, a Phoenix and flame flag that we never really had seen before. And it resonated with me, and I thought, I'm not really that much of an artist so I'm a good tracer. And then I said, hey, I can use that that Phoenix and that flame this flames are amazing. So this was my first version of the fog and gold flag design, back in from May 2019. And we traced the exact shape of that 1900 flag made the bird black, the flames red, and threw on a golden upper half for our gold rush history and fog for our gold or foggy weather. With dabbling with some other ideas. With different colors crimson bird some orange international orange flames Oh wait maybe we could throw in some blue water. I forgot to put the eye in on one of them, but some comments that hey the fox should go on top because the fog is up in the sky. And with that and we made the flames is sort of international orange and the bird is a red crimson. And before I got to the final design, I thought, you know, maybe that shapes not it. Maybe we should go all weird Phoenix like modernize it and I worked with the other person on Twitter comics on and we dabbled with some flowery feathers and I learned a lot about what big shapes mean whether they're a meat eater or vegetarian. This is kind of a cross, I think but it ultimately I dropped it. And then I came up with the final design in 2013 2019 on October on Halloween. So here you have it. The gray as mentioned is the fog but it can double as iron from our motto gold for the gold rush his origins and also the motto. The flames are a little tip of the hat to the Golden Gate Bridge and the bird is crimson color. Whether you want to call that passion or the blood that's been spilled by many people in our country and our city for various causes and wars. The two things I major things I changed were the eye and the, the back feathers. If you go back and forth you can see the eye before was a little bit droopy and a little bit sad or angry. And then the feathers got a little bit bigger I wanted it to have a little more open I maybe a little less mean looking. And so I thought, hey, the best way to get this, we really should have a new flag. It would, we'd be more proud of our city, and it could be flown everywhere, not just on city hall. And I originally planned to introduce it in January 2020, some family personal issues came in and so I delayed it. Then COVID-19 came along and I thought, okay, wait, this must be really bad timing. Then I thought wait, maybe this is the best timing. This is something to rally around. So I called for folks who could get in to buy a flag and I got 26 people to get it we ordered 31 flags and here you see the very first flag, full size three by five feet going up in the Langua near between Noe Valley and the mission. And it brought, I didn't quite bring a tear to my eyes but it's quite striking to see it in reality, and they're flying all over the city now. And it really to me it represents history with the golden origins and it honors the old aching flag and our Phoenix origins of the multiple fires from the 1850s the 1906 fire. But also other calamities, whether human or natural. It shows resilience of Phoenix is really saying hey, we can get through this. And where we may have to go through some difficult change and it's civic pride. And that mean that that has meaning now in our shelter in place COVID-19 world and in the struggles we're having with the black lives matter and the police reform. I do want to note that that I'm not beholden to this design I'm proud of it, but it's got, I'm going to end here soon. But there are other designs know Brian around the same time at night 2015 designed the rising stripes flag I think that flag is very handsome and it works. Neil must put together a flag using the city colors black and gold in with a simplified Phoenix on the front. You know, and basically I'm selling the flag and distributing it's not so much, you know, to it's not about making money it's actually showing that there's a proof of proof of work, and that I do donate monies to charities and I think a competition is going forward or what you know, let's get something going, whether it's by an organization or sanctioned by the city to select a city flag. By the way, on a side note, you know they say a kid should be able to design it this is my daughter's drawing of the Phoenix so yes indeed, it is a little bit harder to draw, but the like I said at the beginning of Phoenix is very meaningful for this city. And it's flowing all over the city whether draped over a balcony and a window on flag pulls all across the city. A guy near plan like Park just picked up his flag yesterday so it's in the sunset Parkway district and I just want to thank everybody and you can look more at the flag and if you're interested in purchasing one of various sizes you can go to the website. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. That was interestingly dovetailed to john's to john's commentary. Well, we have a lot of interesting questions that I would love to pose to you. The first question came from stardust Doherty, who was curious if there's ever been an attempt to change the motto from something so war like maybe Brian maybe john has the answer to that. Not that I've ever heard, not there or heard I mean I think I think one of the one of the one of the critiques probably is is that it's that it's not easily parsed as a flag on you know just because it's it's just most possible don't really even know what it what it is what it means but but as far as I have ever known I mean that that that motto was there in 1869 at least so and it seems been there ever since on the city seal. So yeah, the I think the the, I guess the renovation of city hall which took place. What was that the big, the big renovation 20. Oh, right. Before 2000 like late 1990s, I think. Yeah, yeah, so I think the effort there was to was to really kind of throw out the black and gold I mean I don't because I don't I don't think I think it was pretty late. The worst providers actually, you know, officially made black and gold the official colors of the city. And so there is that that that that gold and iron black and gold and it's been it's reinforced on the on the on the dome. One of the things I did not mention in my presentation was and you can't really see it because the images are all, you know, black and white or sepia tone but but the but the original flag was black and gold was mainly was mainly sort of black and and there were sort of gold accents in the in the in the flames and in the moda so so that's how I presented. I'm always struck with how many ironworks there were in in early San Francisco, one of them in fact called the Phoenix ironworks which was founded by a couple mechanics founders. But, you know, for a time there was, I don't know, six or seven at least blacks with ironworks. Hi, because I the explanation that feeling gave in, in 1900 as he was sort of explaining, you know, the ration office new flag and as they were making their selection was that, you know, that gold search stood for prosperity and and all that and that iron iron was really about about courage and resolve. And then and then later on it also sort of got this meeting of of literal armaments being made in the city so that was part of it too. But but I think the original idea behind behind iron was a little more poetic maybe than being specific to industry or arms or whatever else. Strength. Steve manier has a question, is there an official or unofficial California convention that municipal flags should be seals with a white background. Not that I know of that flag should be. Yeah, yeah. I doubt it because like I grew up in Fresno California and they do not have the city seal on their flag. They do have the words Fresno on it it seems to be a California tradition because our state flag has the word California Republic written on it. As does San Francisco and a few other cities, but I don't believe there's a convention with it. And the costa teeny has a has a request that you repeat the translation of the motto. Oh, it's it's a gold in peace, iron in war. And it's in Spanish. Yes, not Latin. That's interesting. How about from stardust dirty again. Are you aware of any San Francisco independence succession movements that involved flags. I thought that was all Sonoma. There are California ones that but I but I've not I'm not really paid attention to any flags associated with them. The bear flag. Yeah, I guess that's but but even more recently they're there have been there have been efforts to make California an independent country and all of that but I don't know if there are flags so sure that there probably are logos of some sort whether anybody has ever tried. There was also flag that predates the bear flag to my knowledge that it's all known either as the Pico flag or the Alvarado flag. White field with a giant red star on it, essentially saying that California was a lone star country breaking away from Mexico. And it was, to be fair, a hat tip to Texas which had previously done a similar thing. It's quite simple and striking. But it never the story on that's interesting. I don't know the details but it didn't quite break away from Mexico at that time. You know that's interesting because I suspect that a lot of people involved with the Texas independence. After they were retired came to California timings about right. Let's see Noah Brian says asks with call from the mayor of Salt Lake City to change their flag. Do you have. Do you have serious hopes that that San Francisco will follow. And actually, I do. I'm, I'm a boat. I kind of think of that famous line of, you know, have hope but be a realistic. I'm not going to re quote Casey case I'm here but you know about the stars and feet in the ground, but I think that I'm using a combination of my experience with other efforts that are less symbolic is you need both the ground grassroots upswell of support for some kind of change, as well as political leadership or symbolic top down leadership to get this to happen. And I won't likely work in unto itself on either of those you need both. And so my angle is to get this flag distributed everywhere and doing talks like this to get a focus on the need to change the flag I put forth this flag the fog and gold flag. Honestly, I just that my core, I just want a better flag that we can all be proud of, and that seeing these all over the city will make folks realize, oh, what is our city flag is it this one I will always say this is unofficial. We can either make it official or we could have a common competition of some sort with a panel we can all be comfortable with that honors the city's a diverse history and I, you know, that there were native Americans here before us and and we've got many things in our history and many things to be proud of about our city. You can't necessarily put all of it into one flag but let's put it out there there's a lot of creative minds out there and I'm sure there's something that I'm going to go oh my gosh that's even better than my design. Yeah, I'm, I'm excited by the prospect of the city rallying around a new flag. You know, in fact, I'm sure you're familiar with Jeremy fishes design little posters that he's been putting around in North Beach. Yeah. I, you know, I just glanced at it and I thought wow that's interesting that I'm seeing this that I'm recognizing it now when we are hosting this talk today. I thought that was a great way to just rally people and get people excited about their neighborhood and their. Jeremy actually in the in the in the in the immediate wake of the Roman Mars talk which got so much attention in March 2015. San Francisco magazine did its own sort of unofficial, you know they asked for different designers and artists to sort of do their own sort of ideas and Jeremy who was kind of part of that that that initial effort so he's he's he's been specifically in in in flag as well. Cool. Yeah, well we'll see where that goes. Lana custom teeny has another question she says that the international orange of the flames in your flag does not seem to match the orange of the golden the gate bridge. How did you match the color. So, there's two pieces to that. One is that international orange. If you go to Wikipedia there's actually three colors that are offered there one of them is blaze orange that you often see for safety. That's very orange but bright. The international orange we see on the bridge like you've seen is it's a got a more of a red hue to the orange. What's interesting is I did pick the color and two things happened. Firstly, is that the color. When you place it on different materials expresses itself differently. So the California Historical Society on Mission Street painted its building an international orange but to my eyes, it looks a bit more orangey than the Golden Gate Bridge is reddish orange. That's technically the same color. So part of it's about well what do you put it on, but truth be told, the color that I picked is not technically international orange, it's a slight deviation from it. But the reason for that was the contrast. And that's one of the struggles I'll be frank they have received comments about this is that the contrast of the flag is a little, you know, it's not as contrasty as it could be. There's more on the symbolism and some of the logic of having the fog on top and the gold a gold foundation on the bottom. That created having orange on gold is less contrasty so I had to tweak the orange international orange to be slightly more contrasty with the gold, and then the crimson to contrast with the fog gray. I could go back to a black bird like the old flag, you know, but this is what it is for now. Well I think technically a Phoenix is supposed to be red or gold or, you know, if we want to ask, you know, the Encyclopedia Britannica or Wikipedia I'm sure they're going to say a Phoenix should be red or gold or flame colored somehow. But I have to say I enjoyed the the punk rock Phoenix, you know, San Francisco. I mean that connects with San Francisco's musical past right. Yes. Now that we have a question for john. Can you recall what the oldest example of the city seal is or was that you were one that I showed at the front of the presentation is the one that appeared on the SF board survivors and this reports. Of 1859 60. There used to be. I've not found it on the current city website but there's an archived version of the city website that used to have a whole page about the seal and history of the seal. And on that page, you know, that's where they say that that there was a there was an earlier seal from 1852. And I think that was before it was officially, corporately, the city and county of San Francisco. And that and that seal according to the city's description was, was a little bit more like the current, the current state of California seal. There was a Phoenix on it was on the bottom. And, but the one, the one that is that is in that in that reports document from 1859 60, you know, given that the city adopted and seal in 1859 should be pretty much what they adopted. Interesting. Well, I'll keep an eye out for that. Yeah, and I don't know. I mean, and I've not, I don't know if I'm any images or artist representations of what of what that civic flag might have been like my guess is that it probably would have been simply the seal on a solid field. But I don't know that. Um, stardust. Doherty has another question. She brought this up right away in the chat. This was, I don't know, maybe the first third of your presentation, john, but you showed a visual of the fire departments and multiple flags. This was in the 1920s, I think, and it appears, it couldn't be the 1920s but probably the 30s but it appeared that there was a swastika on the left side. That's right. That's right. I haven't that that was the that was the that was the photograph of St. Jim Roth, dedicating a new replacement firehouse in 1915. No one else may may know the history. I mean, I know that the swastika sort took on new meaning in the 30s. And we always associate it now with with Nazi element and all that but but I think I think in an earlier time, the swastika didn't have that meaning. But I did notice that it's it's a whole sort of floral stand there with a swastika sort of flowers. It's definitely jarring to see. Weird. Stranger things have happened. But just to say that the swastika, the swastika is actually a very, very old folk symbol. It's not it didn't originate in Nazi Germany. It's been around for a very long time. It was something that they adopted as their symbol but it had been around for much, much longer than that. Right, right. Carolyn has a question, an older version of Phoenix, Arizona's flag looks very similar to the early San Francisco flag. Was there any, is there any connection or no. I think that need to be researched. It does look strikingly similar. Not to the eight can design, but to the 1930s, essentially the current design, but they changed that in 1990 to their more burgundy or crimson background with the white Phoenix head. You think about if you think about the United States seal, you know, with with the eagle there you have that, you have that heraldic bird figure that figures in many many seals you know that even when the when the bird is not Phoenix. So I think in a lot of ways, you know what to my eye, what started happening in the 30s is that the bird that was adopted was was actually less Phoenix like, even though they kept flames underneath it, and the flames got more and more stylized. It has that kind of crown figure now that's kind of below the Phoenix, but, but yeah, interesting. Yeah, I'm not sure if Phoenix, Arizona actually has the, the history of fires like San Francisco does and you know the Phoenix was used in in on Roman coinage because ancient Rome was burned many, many times and had had a lot of similar similarities to San Francisco's history that there are fire companies and stuff. I would add there's three major cities in the United States that have Phoenix on their seals or flags. And that's San Francisco Phoenix, Arizona and Atlanta, Georgia. Depending on what you think happened first or who cares what happened first to you know Atlanta and San Francisco kind of have it. You can do get out on who's first but I don't think it really matters. But Phoenix never actually burned it was about as a Native American civilization that was lost and nobody knows what happened to them. And so when they restarted the community, they said, Hey, we're re it's a rebirth of this community in this location, even though it's European settlers. And then Atlanta burning during the Civil War. Right. So I think San Francisco clearly is the winner here. I think they all can have Phoenix is on them. Yes. One thing I didn't mention was, I love flags of all different types. And I think the star, for example, is a great symbol, but it's on so many flags that if you might have noticed none of my designs whether they were hideous or compelling had a star on them because I think that symbol is overused. And it is not unique, even though it's an important symbol to have a star. And while I think of Phoenix, although it's not truly unique to be on the San Francisco flag because of the other two major cities and there's about a half dozen other small cities like Lawrence Kansas and Portland, Maine that have a Phoenix on them, although Portland looks more like a seagull. That I think the Phoenix is still very distinctive, relatable and relatively unique. Yeah, I agree. Go ahead, John. I don't want to get you off a footnote, but on a different subject. Let's hear the footnote. I didn't include it in the talk, but people may wonder, you know, whatever happened at 1929 flag, the police department kept that 1929 copy of the 1900 flag. And in 1952, the city conveyed that physical flag, or by order of the city, the flag was conveyed from the police department, who was the custodian of the flag to the site of California pioneers. And at that point, the city did not have any public museum space where such a flag can be displayed. And it was just by common consent that yes, the pioneers are probably the most obvious place to put it. But in 1975, shortly after the main public library got its new San Francisco History Room, now known as the San Francisco History Center, the city actually made a bid to get that flag back. And there was a whole custody gap that went on for about a year between 75 and 76 to try to try to sort of sort of bring the flags or back into a more truly public and publicly owned space. And eventually, I think, you know, neither side was willing to give and it just sort of went nowhere. But the pioneers do still have that flag, although unfortunately it's, they say it's in deep storage. So you can't, you can't actually see, but they did, they did put it under glass and frame it and all of that, but it's, it's not part of their primary exhibit now. Well, luckily they changed their exhibits out a lot. So maybe we'll, with some pressure, we can convince it. Let's see it. Now, Brian, I have a question for you. You have your website, urbanlifedesigns.com, you're selling your flag there. Well, it's actually, my website is urban life signs, like medical life signs. It's very, I thought it was a great name, but it can get confusing. Okay. But the flag is on sffoggoldflag.com. That's sffoggoldflag.com. So there's two double Fs, a double F and a double G in there. I got it. And how much is it selling for? So apparently everybody wants to go big. I thought they'd want to go a little smaller. The large three by five foot flag goes for $98. It's in nylon 200 denier. And I've gotten over almost 200 orders now. I'm about to go make another request for ship, you know, for printing of them because I'm batlocked backlogged, but that should be arriving, you know, in the coming weeks to deliver to folks. And thanks to Peter Hart lob of the Chronicle for making the piece on me, and the flag itself and its meaning, because that I don't I think I might have gotten 40 orders without that. That that's, it's much more success than I imagined that it would happen, but you can also get smaller sizes at two by three foot. A small one by one and a half foot flag or even mini flags that you can wave around with your with a stick on it. I look forward to my copy of it. I put the Peter Hart lab article in the chat. And I had another question for you. But it has gone from my mind. Are there any other questions from the attendees. A lot of nice things people enjoyed the talk so far. All right. No one's chatting with me saying yes they have questions. Well, thanks you guys this is pretty, pretty awesome and I look forward to, I look forward to getting my flag. But I also look forward to, you know, hearing how, how, how your research in this vein progresses. You know, for me, I had the two things that I would love, I think what John's research recently with all those photographs from the teens and 20s and 30s has really filled out some of the gaps, you know, it's not full but it's the past you can't always get it. What I would love to see is, well what did that 1940 flag look like where they first put the word San Francisco on it. It didn't look dramatically different but it'd be great to see it flying somewhere. So we can confirm. And then secondly, is that seal, or the flag quoted pre 1877 it was 1859 or 1859. What does it look like they got changed and what is this San Francisco city flag that's mentioned in some reports. Yeah, there was one one of the little the little tidbits that I found was that there was a there was an article from August of 1900, where the old city hall on Kearney Street across the Port of Square was being torn down to build new city hall and somebody in the ruins discovered what the article called the the original city flag so I don't know if that was the one from 59 or from 62 or from some later point but but that was at least some record that there was an actual physical flag somewhere. I'm just wondering if it wouldn't make sense to contact the Monterey Monterey Public Library, because they have a history room also and I just suspect that a lot of the records prior to San Francisco becoming a city, you know under Mexican rule that that Monterey would have whatever draft seals or flags. I might have have that material. Yeah. All right. Well, it looks like the questions have dried up. But I'm sure that questions will percolate as people digest what you've said. I just want to direct all of our attendees to click on the links that I've provided in the chat room and you can contact both gentlemen today. They have contact information there. But yeah, we can't wait to see a new city flag and please let me know if I can help you connect you with other folks that might be interested in hosting you for a talk. Great. Thank you. Thanks to the Mechanics Institute too. Thanks, Karen. You're very welcome and we look forward to more. Okay. Thanks a lot. All right. And I just want to shout out thanks to all our attendees and if you enjoyed the talk today, please check out Mechanics Institute's website. We have a lot of more, a lot more programming coming up and that is mi library.org. Cheers. Okay, have a good afternoon. Thank you. Bye bye.