Alaska's flag shows the night sky as seen from Alaska: the seven stars of the Big Dipper and, above them in the corner, Polaris, the North Star, all in gold on a field of deep blue. It is the only US state flag designed by a child. Benny Benson was thirteen when he drew it for a territorial contest in 1927, thirty-two years before Alaska became a state, and the design has never been altered since. Among American state flags it is routinely ranked near the very top, and its origin story is probably the most affecting in the whole catalog.
A contest for schoolchildren
In 1926 Alaska was a territory without a flag, which was becoming an embarrassment at events where every state banner hung and Alaska's place was empty. The Alaska Department of the American Legion took up the problem and organized a design contest open to Alaskan schoolchildren in grades seven through twelve, to run in early 1927. Schools across the territory held local rounds, and by the March deadline 142 designs had been forwarded to Juneau for the final judging.
The entries ran to the predictable: midnight suns, northern lights, polar bears, gold-rush pans, mountains. The judges' unanimous choice was quieter than any of them. Entry number 142, from the territorial school in Seward, was a blue rectangle with eight gold stars arranged as the Big Dipper and Polaris. The territorial legislature adopted it on May 2, 1927.
Benny Benson
The winner was John Ben "Benny" Benson Jr., a seventh grader, thirteen years old. He was born in Chignik in 1913 to a Swedish father and a mother of Aleut and Russian descent. After his mother died when he was three, his father, unable to care for the children while working, sent Benny and his brother to a mission home, and by 1927 Benny was living at the Jesse Lee Home for children in Seward.
Benson submitted a short handwritten note with his drawing, and it remains the flag's official explanation: "The blue field is for the Alaska sky and the forget-me-not, an Alaskan flower. The North Star is for the future state of Alaska, the most northerly in the Union. The dipper is for the Great Bear, symbolizing strength."
For a thirteen-year-old, the note is remarkably complete flag thinking. It gives the field a double meaning, sky and state flower. It uses the Dipper as a pointer, since the two stars at the end of its bowl aim at Polaris, so the flag literally shows you how to find north. And it looks forward: Benson wrote "the future state of Alaska" in 1927, three decades early.
His prize was an engraved gold watch and a $1,000 scholarship. The flag was first raised on July 9, 1927, at the Jesse Lee Home in Seward, with Benson present. He later used the scholarship money toward training as a diesel mechanic, and spent much of his life in Kodiak working on aircraft engines. He died in 1972. A monument to him stands in Seward, and schools and streets around the state carry his name.
From territory to state, unchanged
Alaska's path to statehood took another thirty-two years, and the flag made the trip intact. The Alaska Statehood Act passed in 1958, and on January 3, 1959, Alaska entered the Union as the 49th state. The state constitution and statutes simply carried the 1927 territorial flag forward: eight gold stars in a field of blue, seven forming the most conspicuous part of Ursa Major, the eighth being Polaris.
The flag also acquired a soundtrack. In 1935 Marie Drake, an employee of the territorial education department, published a poem called "Alaska's Flag" that opens "Eight stars of gold on a field of blue." Set to music by Elinor Dusenbury, it became the official state song in 1955, which makes Alaska one of the few states whose anthem is entirely about its flag.
Why the design works
The North American Vexillological Association's 2001 survey of 72 US state, territorial, and Canadian provincial flags placed Alaska 5th, with a score of 7.96 out of 10. Only New Mexico, Texas, Quebec, and Maryland scored higher, and no other US state flag beat it. The reasons line up with every principle of flag design that vexillologists preach: two colors, no words, no seal, a pattern simple enough for a child to draw (a child did), and symbolism that needs no caption. Most Americans could not describe their own state flag from memory. Most Alaskans can, and so can a lot of people who have never been north of Seattle.
The design also has a rare property: it is a star chart. On a clear night in most of Alaska you can hold the flag up and match it against the sky. The gold stars are usually rendered in a warm yellow-gold on a blue so dark it reads almost as navy. The flag has now outlived the territory, the mission home, and its designer, and it still shows the same eight stars it did in 1927.
References
[1] "Flag of Alaska," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Alaska
[2] "Benny Benson," UA Journey, University of Alaska. https://www.alaska.edu/uajourney/notable-people/kodiak/benny-benson/
[3] "Alaska State Flag, and Song, Intertwined Around Benny Benson," UA Journey, University of Alaska. https://www.alaska.edu/uajourney/history-and-trivia/Alaska%20State%20Flag%20and%20Song/
[4] "Benny Benson: An Alaska Kid Who Made History," Alaska Historical Society. https://alaskahistoricalsociety.org/discover-alaska/kids-page/benny-benson-an-alaska-kid-who-made-history/
[5] Ted Kaye, "The American State/Provincial Flag Survey," Raven: A Journal of Vexillology, Vol. 8 (2001), NAVA.