What is the history of the Pledge?

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and Christian socialist working as a staff writer for the magazine The Youth's Companion in Boston. Bellamy composed the Pledge as the centerpiece of a national school program celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage to the Americas. President Benjamin Harrison endorsed the program by proclamation, and on October 12, 1892, an estimated twelve million American schoolchildren recited Bellamy's words during Columbus Day exercises.

The original text was: I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Bellamy intended the Pledge to be brief enough to recite in fifteen seconds, simple enough for young children to memorize, and broad enough to appeal across the diverse Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish populations attending public schools. The phrase indivisible carried the weight of the Civil War, then within living memory, and reaffirmed that the Union could not be divided.

The text changed several times. In 1923 the National Flag Conference replaced my Flag with the Flag of the United States, and in 1924 added of America, to make clear which flag children were saluting and to address concerns about new immigrants who might be uncertain whether the Pledge referred to their birth country. Congress officially incorporated the Pledge into the Flag Code in 1942, during World War II. The most famous addition came on Flag Day, June 14, 1954, when President Dwight Eisenhower signed legislation adding the words under God after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus and others to distinguish American faith-based liberty from Soviet state atheism during the Cold War.

The original Bellamy salute, an outstretched arm with palm down, was abandoned during World War II because of its similarity to the Nazi salute, and Congress amended the Flag Code in 1942 to prescribe the present hand-over-heart gesture. The Supreme Court ruled in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) that public schools could compel students to salute the flag, then reversed course three years later in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) by holding that compelled patriotism violates the First Amendment.

Bellamy himself never imagined his words would become so enduring. Naturalization candidates may encounter the history when explaining the Pledge or when asked when it was written.