The forgotten history of the "Hitler" salute to the American flag

[shadowrider]

http://forgottenhistoryblog.com/the-official-american-flag-salute-used-to-be-a-hitler-salute/

From the link:

"… Yes, that title is correct. Read on, intrepid history-seekers.

The pledge of allegiance was originally written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a socialist magazine writer. When he wrote it for an children’s magazine, he also described a salute that he thought would be appropriate during its recital.

The pledge was aimed towards children, and the magazine also gave free flags away to schools, where the pledge was originally recited. The salute they were taught to give, with one stiff arm outstretched toward the flag, was deemed the “Bellamy salute” after its creator (who had gotten the idea from a salute that the Romans had done).
Above: The Bellamy Salute, before WWII In the early 1940s, it was noticed that the salute bore a resemblance to a certain other salute being used in Germany at the time (which was based off of the same original Roman salute). As a result, it was formally replaced by Congress with the now-customary hand-on-heart during the pledge.

Below are three photographs showing the old salute, now in the Library of Congress, which were taken in May 1942 in Southington, Connecticut, just one month before the new salute became official. These photographs were taken by Charles Fenno Jacobs, a photojournalist who was at the time employed by the US government."

[DURHAM D]

1. Was this OP prompted by this thread -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028127494

[shadowrider]

2. Yes n/t

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Do remeber pictures like this is

my High School Year Books dating before 1943. Had to look at a 1939 hometown yearbook that I bought at auction last fall. Wow,forgot about that,get reminder,thanks. New it was called the Bellamy Salute form world history class,but that was in the last Century.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. The USA and Germany took the empirical eagle symbol too.

[virgogal]

5. No big deal--- and I was one of the kids.

[Igel]

6. It wasn't an evil Nazi salute until

it was accepted as belonging to them.

It's a symbol. It's got no inherent meaning.

We think of "c" as having a specific use. "Car" or "cell". In some Slavic languages, it's a "ts" sound, as in "lets". In others, it's only an "s" sound. It's a symbol. It means what a community of users takes it to mean. If you have two different communities, it has two different meanings. There is no "one single meaning," regardless of what language dictators like to say. Accepting just that little bit of humility would go a long way to becoming reasonable.

What is hard is that if you're raised with a symbol it's hard to accept this and hard to change them. (But we assume we're always right and others are always wrong. That's just being human.)

[nilesobek]

7. Florida State University

and Atlanta Braves fans use the,"tomahawk chop," in unison during their games.

Its eerie to me watching 75,000 fans doing this all at once and invoked thoughts in me about the nazi salute.

[melman]

8. How is a 'Hitler salute'?

It was adopted when Hitler was 3 years old.