After its 1955 launch, no one seemed to make much of the Milwaukee city flag. For an issue that aroused such passion, it seemed to fade pretty quickly from the civic consciousness. It’s hard to find any references to it at all until about 1967, when the Art Commission toyed with idea of ditching the banner. Their beef was with the Native American. Not that they had gained any sudden burst of sensitivity for the displaced natives. They wanted to ditch the “Chief” because of the departure of the Milwaukee Braves for Atlanta two years prior. During the reign of the Braves, school kids were taught that the emblem was a Braves logo (it wasn’t). However, the call for change went nowhere. The city had been printing the image on official stationary for years and didn’t want to foot the bill for having it all redone.
The city proclaimed it a “banner year” in 1955 when the current city flag was established. This image graced the cover of the 1955 Directory and Report of City Affairs. Ebay.
In 1973, another call for a new flag was made by Ald. John Kalwitz, who again used the presence of the “Braves” emblem as one of the reasons to change the banner. Kalwitz’s efforts led to a contest to redesign the flag in 1975. Among the common themes this time around were beer steins, the Summerfest smile, the Mitchell Park Domes, and the Harbor Bridge (which had been completed in 1972 but was still not connected to any roads, it is known today as the Hoan Bridge ). A committee awarded artist Lee Tishler first prize for his flag that depicted stylized trees, waves, gears, and a multi-ethnic trio of stick figures holding hands. But in their official recommendation to the common council, they suggested that elements of the eight top entries be merged into one (since that had worked so well in 1955). The council hired Noel Spangler, the graphic artist who designed the Summerfest smile, to complete the frankenflag. He did, and the council rejected it. Tishler was given a $100 savings bond and the blue mess of 1955 kept flying.
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A 1994 letter to the editor from artist Lee Tishler to the Milwaukee Sentinel points out that he won a city-wide contest in 1975 to replace the city flag. His design, seen here, was not adopted.
Milwaukee Sentinel, April 28, 1994.
And then the issue mostly fell silent again until 2001. With the opening of the much-heralded Santiago Calatrava addition to the art museum, Ald. Jeff Pawlinski led the charge for a new flag to fly Milwaukee into the 21st century. The Brave was cited yet again as a reason for the old flag to go, by now as a matter of racial sensitivity. A $3,000 prize was offered for the winner and a total of 104 entries went to a panel of judges. Gears were still a common theme, but there was less beer and fewer bridges, and a lot more brise soleil.
Four of the entries into the 2001 city flag contest. None of these – or any other submitted – were deemed worthy of adoption.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, December 11, 2001
In December 2001, the city Arts Board decided that none of the five selected finalists would be recommended for adoption as the new official flag. The entries were derided as too bland, too “rust belt,” and too abstract. “In terms of the ability of a flag to inspire over a long period of time,” one judge said, “none of these carried the day.”
And again, the issue kind of went to sleep until recently. I come down somewhere in the middle of all this on the flag issue. I agree with Roman Mars that the current flag is awful and with Milwaukee Magazine that it is outdated. And I have no real love – nostalgic or otherwise - for the weary old banner. But this issue is about more than just a flag, of course. Looking at the various movements to replace the flag, that old Milwaukee insecurity re-emerges. In 1967, the city had just lost the Braves – literally losing the city’s “big league” status – and wanted to wash that memory from its mind. In 1975, the city wanted to move past the racial issues of the sixties with festivals and multicultural unity. In 2001, it wanted to erase its Podunk reputation of smokestacks and church steeples with a world-class art museum and a state-of-the-art ballpark.
The people who are drawn to Milwaukee today are vastly different than those who were drawn here even a generation ago. The industrial job base of the city has pretty much vanished, leaving mostly white collar growth industries. People no longer flock here to work with their hands. Instead, the city attracts the educated and professional, young people who see value in how a place is represented and the images that represent it. The flag issue is a quasi-social media issue, a kind of come-to-life hashtag for the city. These are people who – as generations have before them – see Milwaukee as a place with world-class city potential. When an idea like the streetcar is floated, it is not promoted as efficient or practical or necessary (not to say it is or isn’t of any of those things), but it is hailed as dynamic and sexy and something will draw the best and brightest to the city.
In short, the Milwaukee seen on the flag is not the Milwaukee of this generation’s dreams. Smokestacks and ugly racial caricatures and long-gone ballpark and dead industries are not the best face this city can put forth, that much is certain. But I think the flag is important as a part of this city’s heritage. Not the things on it, but the thing as a big, messy whole. The flag is the horrible brown linoleum in your Grandma’s kitchen or the tacky sofa-sized landscapes in your parents’ den or the terrible Polish jokes your uncle makes. It’s ugly and tasteless and outdated and inspires nothing, but so what? If you really believe that you live in a Big League City, then you really do. And if it inspires very important outsiders to stroke their very important beards and avert their very important eyes, then they’ll never really get this big ol’ weird place anyway.
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The flag ain’t pretty, it ain’t hip, and it ain’t sexy. And we should all love this city enough to be OK with that.
Tune into WMSE 91.7 every weekday at 7:40 am and 5:40 pm to hear the What Made Milwaukee Famous radio segment. Check out matthewjprigge.com for more by the author.
