Archive Record
Metadata
Catalog Number |
ORG 2019.14 |
Title |
Flag Research Center |
Collection |
Organizations |
Object Name |
Records |
Scope & Content |
This collection contains books by Whitney Smith deaccessioned by the Winchester Public Library in 2019 plus background information about Smith, including an assessment of the renovated high school written by Smith while a high school student and published in the Winchester Star (1955). The Dr. Whitney Smith Flag Research Center Collection is contained in the Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. |
Admin/Biographical History |
Whitney Smith Jr. (Feb. 26, 1940, Arlington, Mass. - Nov. 17, 2016, Peabody) developed a childhood fascination with flags into a scholarly discipline for which, at age 18, he created the term vexillology. Smith grew up in Lexington and Winchester. He received a bachelor's degree in political science from Harvard University in 1961 and a doctorate in political science from Boston University in 1964. He wrote his dissertation on political symbolism. He taught at Boston University, but left academia in 1970 to study flags full time. In 1960, he designed a national flag for newly independent Guyana. In 1961, he created the bimonthly Flag Bulletin with Gerhard Grahl. A year later he founded, in Winchester, the Flag Research Center, a consulting firm that answered inquiries from filmmakers, historians, and commercial flag makers. He designed flags for the Saudi Navy and helped design flags for the islands of Bonaire and Aruba. He wrote several books including The Flag Book of the United States, Flags through the Ages and Across the World, and Flag Lore of All Nations. He wrote more than 250 flag histories for the Encyclopedia Britannica. A resident of Highland Avenue in his youth and of Ledgewood Road in later life, he died from advanced Alzheimer's disease at the age of 76. |
Copyrights |
Permission to publish material from this collection is subject to approval by the Town of Winchester. |
Finding Aids |
A finding aid with detailed information about the contents of the collection is available. Contact the Archives for a copy. |
Search Terms |
Flags Vexillology |
People |
Smith, Whitney |
Containers |
Background Flag Book Flags through the Ages |