The 2004 commemorative Iowa quarter-dollar pays homage to Iowa’s great artist son, Grant Wood, and the prairie school house, with a motto for Iowa, “Foundation in Education.” Wood’s painting is “Arbor Day,” showing students and a teacher planting a tree outside a one-room schoolhouse. Image from the Littleton Coin Company.
Iowans fly their flags today in celebration of the anniversary of Iowa statehood. Iowa’s admission to the Union came on December 28, 1846; Iowa is the 29th state admitted.
The Flag Code, 4 USC §6 (d), notes that the U.S. flag may be flown on “the birthdays of States (date of admission),” in addition to the other score of dates specifically written into law.
American Flag, Spencer, Iowa, 1996 – caption from the National Geographic Society: A man rolls up U.S. flags at the end of the Clay County Fair in Spencer, Iowa. “Although the population of Spencer is only about 12,000, the fair draws some 300,000 visitors. Once a year, rising from the endless flatness of the Iowa countryside, a crowd forms—to stroll, to hear big country music acts like the Statler Brothers, to sell a grand champion boar, to buy a new silo.” (Photographed on assignment for, but not published in, “County Fairs,” October 1997, National Geographic magazine) Photograph by Randy Olson; copyright National Geographic Society. Just a great photo.
More:
- Iowa’s path to statehood, detailed at Iowa Public Television; Iowa’s admission followed the template laid out in the Northwest Ordinances of 1786 and 1787
- 5th grade lesson plan and lesson materials for Iowa statehood, from University of Northern Iowa, Prairie Voices
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 