Francis Bellamy

Francis Bellamy

Francis Julius Bellamy was an American Christian socialist minister and author. He is best known for writing the original version of the US Pledge of Allegiance in 1892. His original Pledge was accompanied with a salute to the flag known as the Bellamy salute. In 1954, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words ‘under God’ to the pledge.

About Francis Bellamy in brief

Summary Francis BellamyFrancis Julius Bellamy was an American Christian socialist minister and author. He is best known for writing the original version of the US Pledge of Allegiance in 1892. His original Pledge was accompanied with a salute to the flag known as the Bellamy salute. During World War II, the salute was replaced with a hand-over-heart gesture because the original gesture resembled the Nazi salute. In 1954, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words ‘under God’ to the pledge. Bellamy spent most of the last years of his life living and working in Tampa, Florida. His cremated remains were brought back to New York and buried in a family plot in a cemetery in Rome. He died there on August 28, 1931, at the age of 76. His son, John Benton Bellamy, married Ruth \”Polly\”. They had three children, Harriet, Barbara and John Bent on Bellamy,. Jr. The Pledge was published in the September 8, 1892, issue of the magazine, and immediately put to use in the campaign.

It began as an intensive communing points with salient points of our national history from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution. The pledge was published as part of the Youth’s Companion, a patriotic circular and magazine. In 1888, the magazine had begun a campaign to sell US flags to public schools as a premium to solicit subscriptions. The magazine became a fervent supporter of the schoolhouse flag movement, which aimed to place a flag above every school in the nation. Four years later, by 1892,. theMagazine had sold US flags. to approximately 26,000 schools. By this time the market was slowing for flags, but was not yet saturated. In 1891, Bellamy went to speak to a national meeting of school superintendents to promote the celebration. The convention liked the idea and selected a committee of leading educators to implement the program.