Last modified: 2009-07-04 by rick wyatt
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image by Joe McMillan, 23 February 2000
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The Governor's flag, adopted in 1936, which is the state flag with the addition of the state coat of arms in the upper angle of the saltire and the state military crest in the lower angle. (Section 31-2-54, Code of Alabama).
Joe McMillan, 23 February 2000
image by C. Eugene Baldwin, 2 January 1999
This flag may have been in use before the law was passed--but yes, the design above the saltire would have been the "coat of arms" (i.e., the central design of the state seal) before 1939. The eagle on the shield with the scroll "Here we rest" was made the state seal by the Reconstruction government in, as I recall, 1868. It replaced a seal that showed a map of the state nailed to an oak tree. In 1939, as part of a general overhaul of state symbols, the eagle seal was replaced by the present seal showing just the map, no tree, under the impression that that constituted a restoration of the old seal. (I have seen pictures of an antebellum printed seal with the inscription "Alabama Executive Office" that was very similar to the modern seal; this is presumably the model for the one adopted in 1939. At the same time, the legislature also approved the current COA with the two eagles supporting the shield of the five "flags."
Whitney Smith's Flag Book of the United States [smi75a], as I recall, shows the older version but mentions that the design had been superseded by that with the new COA.
Joe McMillan, 20 November 2001