Bellamy salute
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The Bellamy salute is the hand gesture described by Francis Bellamy to accompany his Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States. During the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was sometimes known as the "flag salute." It was first demonstrated on October 12, 1892 according to Bellamy's published instructions for the "National School Celebration of Columbus Day":
At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military salute -- right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.
– quoted from The Youth’s Companion, 65 (1892): 446–447.
The initial military salute was soon replaced with a hand-on-heart gesture, followed by the extension of the arm as described by Bellamy. Because of the similarity of this part of the salute to the Hitler salute, the Bellamy salute was widely replaced around 1942 with the modern gesture of placing the hand over the heart without raising the arm. In 1943, the Daughters of the American Revolution, initially resistant to the change, endorsed the hand-on-heart gesture during the Pledge. [1]
From 1939 until the attack on Pearl Harbor, this salute worked against the reputations of Americans who argued against intervention in World War II, such as aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh. Opponents of Lindbergh's views would include pictures of Lindbergh using the Bellamy salute in pamphlets attempting to tie him to alleged Nazi intrigue [1]. In his Pulitzer prize winning biography Lindbergh, author A. Scott Berg explains that interventionist propagandists would photograph Lindbergh and other isolationists using this salute from an angle that left out the American flag, so it would be indistinguishable from the Hitler salute to observers.
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- ^ Fried, Richard M. (1999). The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!: Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold-War America. New York: Oxford University Press (USA), p. 12. ISBN 0-19-513417-6.
