Image: USPresidentialSeal1915Print

Description: A print of the Seal of the President of the United States from about 1915. This is thought to be the one obtained by President Wilson (probably from the Bailey Banks & Biddle firm) and given to Commander Byron McCandless (probably on May 4, 1916) during discussions about redesigning the presidential flag, which happened later in 1916. The drawing at the left was a crude version of the forthcoming flag, with the presidential arms in the middle and four stars in each corner. Wilson also showed McCandless the 1901 Martiny plaque of the presidential arms, which was in the floor of the north entranceway of the White House at the time, and which arranged the stars as an arc of 10 with a small arc of 3 underneath, all above the scroll, which the annotation on the right refers to. This print became the basis for the design of the 1916 presidential flag, which (in 1945, after turning the eagle's head to its right) was itself the basis for the modern version of the seal. The actual presidential seal was not changed to use this design until the 1945 change; this was just an artistic interpretation of the then-existing seal.
Title: USPresidentialSeal1915Print
Credit: Scanned from page 452 of The Eagle And The Shield, 1978, by Richard S. Patterson and Richardson Dougall. The original color copy is (or was in 1978) filed in series 2 of the Woodrow Wilson Papers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, along with a May 24, 1916 letter from (Assistant Secretary of the Navy) Franklin Roosevelt to President Wilson regarding the flag. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Author: Probably from Bailey Banks & Biddle, a Philadelphia firm. Artist unknown.
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No