State Flags I Have Known 9-15: A Rundown and Ranking

It's time for our third installment in The Topic That I Never Imagined That I Would Ever Blog About: state flags!

Content warning: this post contains images of a nipple.

How It Started

Shortly after declaring my quest to spend at least one night in every state, I started to take notice of state flags.  I was toying with the idea of maybe writing something about them someday when The Washington Post ran the latest news that a lawmaker in Texas was calling for the removal of all images of the Virginia state flag from school curriculum because the flag has [gasp!] a nipple.  I took this as a sign to drop everything and to write up a rundown and ranking of the state flags for the eight states that I had visited at the time.

How It's Going

As of this writing I have visited 30 states, so it's time to catch up our state flag rankings.  We're going to review seven state flags in this post, which will bring the blog total up to 15, and then we'll continue to catch up in batches of five.

Today we're going to take a look at these state flags, in the order that I visited them.  Then we're going to rank them and then merge them into the previous list so that we end up with a ranking of all 15 flags.

California
Michigan
Virginia (aw yiss!!!  Nipplegate!!!  The one that started it all)
Florida
Louisiana
Georgia
Alabama
Arkansas

Let's dive right in!

California

Whoa!  Let's start off strong with The Bear.

California is an important state, and they have the flag to back it up.  As if that wasn't enough, California's flag is the only state flag (at least that I noticed) that was prominently displayed in an Alfred Hitchcock movie!  The next time that you watch Vertigo, keep an eye out in the inquest scene.

Michigan

Oof, we got off to a strong start but our next contender is a dud.  I really had to strain to find the Michigan flag out and flying.  Here is the best shot that I got when I visited Lansing, and it's trying its best to blend in with the building behind it.

Here is a closer view:

Source

I don't hate it, but it's so hard to see on the blue background.

Virginia

Here is the Nipple!!!

I am an immature person, and I went into my Virginia flag experience expecting to giggle over a nipple.  Instead I found myself awed by an image of a powerful woman, and I can't get enough of it.

In case anyone is not aware of the backstory, the lady is the Goddess Virtus, and 100 years ago someone got confused by her powerful calf muscles and thought that the image was of a man, so they dropped her neckline in order to make Virtus's gender crystal clear.  Every once in a while someone notices the nipple and makes a fuss about it.

Florida

The bad news about Florida's flag: no nipple.

More bad news about Florida's flag: The red cross is a nod to the Cross of St. Andrew.  On the surface, this is fine, and in fact it is the same image that is on Scotland's and Nova Scotia's flags.  The problem is that it is the same image that forms the background on the Confederate flag, so when we're dealing with states that were formerly in the Confederacy, there's a question about what the intention is.  

If we assume good intentions, it's a nice looking flag.  If it is supposed to be evoking the good ol' days of the War of Northern Aggression...well, we've got a problem.  I'm not sure which side to land on but it is a topic that we're going to be revisiting in this post and in this series.

Louisiana

Blue flag, white bird.  I can get behind this.

Georgia

If at first you don't succeed...try try again.

Georgia's state flag has an unfortunate history.  The first design was somewhat similar to the current one, but in the 1950s someone decided to replace the stripes with the full on "stars and bars" of the Confederate battle flag.  By 2001 that did not seem like such a good idea, so an entirely new design was adopted.  The good thing about the new design is that it did not include the Confederate flag, and the bad thing about the new design is that everyone hated it.  Folks went back to the drawing board and came up with the current configuration.  You can read all about it here.

Alabama

We're going short and sweet here with the St. Andrew Cross.  I mean, yeah it's Florida's flag just without the seal.

We'll make up for it with a little flex.  When your state is first alphabetically, that's a great reason to have a display of all 50 state flags in front of your capitol.

Arkansas

Arkansas joins with Ohio and Indiana in letting everyone know what number state is it.  There are 25 stars on the blue border to represent the 25th state.

And then we're going one better with the four stars in the white section: this is a nod to Arkansas's other allegiances over the years: the top star is for the Confederacy, and the bottom three stars are for France, Spain, and the US.  The nod to flags past and present is pretty typical in the south east states.

The image reminds me of something, but I'm not sure exactly what.  At first I kept thinking of the Tabasco logo, but when I went to verify I'm not sure that it lands.

What Have We Learned Here?

Before we get to the rankings, let's take stock.  I'm starting to see a pattern and my working hypothesis is that there are three distinct classes of state flags:

• Statement flags: these have a unique, unforgettable image.  California is the prime example.
• Invisible flags: these flags that have busy drawings on either a dark blue or white background.  Michigan and West Virginia are two of many examples.
• We Haven't Gotten Over the War of Northern Aggression Yet flags.  The south east states are the example here.  That's a mouthful so we'll call them WONA flags.

I reserve the right to add additional categories as they emerge or to scrap the hypothesis if it ends up not panning out. 

Let's Rate 'Em!

The judging criteria is:

• Does the flag have a nipple?
• Was the flag noticeable when I visited?  This is a trickier criteria to nail now that I'm on the lookout for flags, but hey it's all subjective and just my opinion anyway.
• Is there something about the flag that makes me say "whoa"?
• Do I like the flag?
• New Criteria added since the last time: where does in fit in the statement/invisible/WONA classification scale.

California - no, yes, yes, yes, Statement
Michigan - no, no, no, no, Invisible
Virginia - yes, yes, yes, yes, Statement
Florida - no, yes, no, yes, WONA
Louisiana - no but the pelican is feeding her chicks so even though birds don't have nipples or lactate this qualifies as an Honorable Mention, yes, yes, yes, Statement
Georgia - no, no, no, no, WONA
Alabama - no, yes, no, yes, WONA
Arkansas - no, no, yes, no, WONA

Let's add the classification for our previous eight flags before we go any further:

Ohio - Statement

Indiana - Statement

Minnesota - Statement

Wisconsin - Invisible

West Virginia - Invisible

Kentucky - Statement

Pennsylvania - Invisible

Maryland - Statement

The official Birchwood Rankings for this batch of flags are:

1. California.  I dearly love Virginia's flag, but when I stand it next to California, the bear takes the lead.  
2. Virginia.  Virtus rocks!  A very close contender for #1.  We need more nipples on flags.
3. Louisiana.  The big bird!
4. Florida.  We're assuming good intentions here, and the Florida flag is a close cousin to Nova Scotia with the St. Andrews cross + state seal
5. Alabama.  Again, we're assuming good intentions.  Maybe if I had visited Alabama before Florida I would have preferred the simplicity of Alabama, but since I saw Florida first I prefer their addition of the state seal.
6. Michigan.  If we were ranking flags on their ability to be invisible, Michigan would rate toward the top of the list.
7. Georgia.  Look, just because your flag has an unfortunate past doesn't mean that you have to settle for a boring present.  No one benefits when insult is added to injury.

Let's bring them into our master list! 

1. California
2. Virginia
3. Indiana
4. Kentucky
5. Ohio.  I previously rated it below Maryland and Wisconsin but it's really grown on me.  An entirely subjective rating system has its perks!
6. Maryland
7. Louisiana
8. Florida
9. Alabama
10. Wisconsin.  Even though the presentation of a busy drawing on a dark blue flag ranks it in the Invisible class, it does have the image of a badger so it gets a higher ranking.
11. Michigan
12. Pennsylvania
13. Minnesota
14. West Virginia
15. Georgia

What do you think of these flags?  Any favorites or least favorites to shout out?