page_title: Pledge of Allegiance
section_title: Bellamy pledge
hierarchical_section_title: Pledge of Allegiance / Origins / Bellamy pledge
caption_attribution_description: English: Students pledging to the flag, 1899, 8th Division, Washington, D.C. Part of the Frances Benjamin Johnston 1890 - 1900 Washington, D.C., school survey.
context_page_description: The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is an expression of allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic of the United States of America. Such a pledge was first composed, with a text different from the one used at present, by Captain George Thatcher Balch, a Union Army Officer during the Civil War and later a teacher of patriotism in New York City schools. The form of the pledge used today was largely devised by Francis Bellamy in 1892, and formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942. The official name of The Pledge of Allegiance was adopted in 1945. The most recent alteration of its wording came on Flag Day in 1954, when the words "under God" were added.
context_section_description: The pledge that later evolved into the form used today was composed in August 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855–1931), who was a Baptist minister, a Christian socialist, and the cousin of Edward Bellamy (1850–1898). Bellamy, however, did not approve of the pledge as Balch had written it, referring to the text as "too juvenile and lacking in dignity." The Bellamy "Pledge of Allegiance" was first published in the September 8 issue of the popular children's magazine The Youth's Companion as part of the National Public-School Celebration of Columbus Day, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas. The event was conceived and promoted by James B. Upham, a marketer for the magazine, as a campaign to instill the idea of American nationalism in students and to encourage children to raise flags above their schools. According to author Margarette S. Miller, this campaign was in line both with Upham's patriotic vision as well as with his commercial interest. According to Miller, Upham "would often say to his wife: 'Mary, if I can instill into the minds of our American youth a love for their country and the principles on which it was founded, and create in them an ambition to carry on with the ideals which the early founders wrote into The Constitution, I shall not have lived in vain.'"
  Bellamy's original Pledge read:
  I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
  The Pledge was supposed to be quick and to the point. Bellamy designed it to be recited in 15 seconds. As a socialist, he had initially also considered using the words equality and fraternity but decided against it, knowing that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans.
  Francis Bellamy and Upham had lined up the National Education Association to support the Youth's Companion as a sponsor of the Columbus Day observance and the use in that observance of the American flag. By June 29, 1892, Bellamy and Upham had arranged for Congress and President Benjamin Harrison to announce a proclamation making the public school flag ceremony the center of the Columbus Day celebrations. This arrangement was formalized when Harrison issued Presidential Proclamation 335. Subsequently, the Pledge was first used in public schools on October 12, 1892, during Columbus Day observances organized to coincide with the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World's Fair), Illinois.
caption: Students reciting a pledge on Flag Day in 1899
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