science · 23 February 1892 · 132 years ago
In 1892, black American, Henry A. Bowman of Worcester, Mass., was issued a U.S. patent for a "Method for Making Flags" (No. 469,395). Bowman devised an easy method to apply emblems or stars upon the field fabric of flags whereby those affixed on opposite sites of the field would correspond in position. He used a cut star or emblem which was stitched through the fabric and an unformed blank on the reverse, using a zigzag stitch over-seaming the raw-cut edges. The blank on the reverse could then be cut away to the outline of the seaming stitches.
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