The State Flag Of Iowa.

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The Iowa State Flag waving in the wind.

The Great Seal of Iowa – One of the initial acts of the first General Assembly in 1847 was to create the Great Seal of Iowa. The seal pictures a citizen soldier standing in a wheat field, surrounded by farming and industrial tools, with the Mississippi River, and the steamboat Iowa in the background. An eagle is overhead holding in its beak a scroll bearing the state motto: “Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain.” The motto was the work of a three-member Senate committee and was incorporated into the design of the seal at their suggestion.

Click here to read more about December 28 Statehood Day celebrations.

(M-0006) Notice that the IOWA flag pictured above – in 1888 – looks nothing like it does today. 1888 – IOWA “Hawkeye State” Allen & Ginter Cigarette Card – Flags of the States and Territories Series.  Allen & Ginter was a Richmond, VA tobacco manufacturing company formed in 1865. In the late 1880s, Allen & Ginter began to release cigarette card sets as promotional items for its cigarette brands. Topics varied from birds and wild animals to American Indian chiefs or flags of the world. Allen & Ginter’s baseball cards were the first of the tobacco era baseball cards ever produced for distribution on a national level.

(P-0281) 1888. This trading card was issued by the W. Duke and Son’s Co. Tobacco Company as an insert premium in their Honest Long Cut brand of Tobacco and Cigarettes. The front of the card features a portrait of Iowa Governor William Larrabee, the Iowa Coat of Arms, and two scenes from our state – Farming and the Mississippi River near Dubuque.
This card (N133B – from a fairly rare series of cards entitled, “State Governors & Coats of Arms”) is set up like a three panel folder and folded when inserted into a cigarette pack at the factory.  The back of the card is a fantastic historical document from the time. It gives a history up till 1888, a population breakdown based on the 1880 census and gives a map of each state or territory in 1888. 

(P-0314) As long as we’re looking at Tobacco cards, here, from 1910 is Card #62 featuring the logo.

Kudos to the amazing resources below for the many quotes, photographs, etc. used on this page.

State Symbols of Iowa, The Iowa Official Register, Iowa.gov

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