This company has produced American flags for most significant moments since the Civil War. For those who sew the American flag, its meaning is personal.
Why Annin Flagmakers is the home of the Star-Spangled Banner
In celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, we visited one of America’s oldest flag makers, Annin Flag Makers in South Boston, Virginia.
South Boston, Virginia – Inside this cavernous warehouse off U.S. Highway 58, thin strips of red and white cotton cascade down nearly every surface.
The strips are stacked high in plastic containers, spread out on the table and fed under the bobbing needle. The humming sound of dozens of sewing machines working simultaneously echoes through the bare concrete room.
Here, in a 200,000-square-foot factory, seamstresses work eight, sometimes 12, hours a day to weave the American flag.
Their company, Annin Flagmakers, bills itself as America’s oldest and largest manufacturer of American flags. The company is one of the few companies still manufacturing American flags.
Since its creation in 1847, the Annin flag has marked the country’s highs and lows. The flag was flown at President Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration and covered his casket. They flew atop Mount Suribachi after the Battle of Iwo Jima and rocketed to the moon aboard Apollo 11.
As political disagreements divide the country, Americans of all political persuasions have raised the flag in a show of pride and protest. They brandished it at campaign rallies, burned it at protests, and placed it next to the graves of fallen soldiers.
Once a symbol of unity, the flag has come to symbolize political alienation for some.
Rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, waved “Old Glory” while breaking windows and breaking down doors to prevent the transition of power. Demonstrators protesting against President Donald Trump at the “No King” rally are calling for the Seal to be reclaimed to show loyalty to the nation’s founding principles.
But the workers who sew the stars and stripes together say they’re not too worried about how people will use them once they’re shipped. Each has a different and deeply personal relationship with the symbol.
Most people believe that it represents freedom. Don’t ask what freedom means to them.
Amber Davis, 31, said there was one rule on the factory floor: “Politics, money and religion are kept out of the door.”
broad stripe
Wearing jeans, pajama pants and T-shirts, Davis and a group of three other young women threaded blue handheld flag fabric through sewing machines.
These were part of the orders for America250, a bipartisan group tasked by Congress with planning this year’s landmark commemoration. The organization is distributing hundreds of thousands of hand-held flags at sporting events and community celebrations as part of an initiative called “America Wave.”
Annin’s employees carefully touch each item one by one. For them, the preparations for Independence Day are a dizzying rush. It’s the busiest season of the year.
Davis has worked at the factory for about 10 years. Davis said she has sewn all kinds of symbols over that time, including Ukrainian, Iranian and Confederate flags. Annin stopped production of the Confederate flag in 2015, saying it represented hatred and division.
The American flag was never among the events that made Davis tremble.
“No matter what’s going on in the world, this is our job,” Davis said. “We’ve seen them all.”
Melonie Brock, 32, said she felt like she was being stitched into history when she started working at Annin a few months ago. The first time she sewed together the blue and red edges of the flag, she was overcome with a strange sense of connection.
“The flag means different things to different people,” said the Waynesboro, North Carolina, native. For her, it’s a memory of her mother, a veteran.
“It goes back to her family and it goes back to her strength,” she said. “I still feel like I can honor my mother when I sew flags.”
Marilisa Nuñez, 26, who was nearby, said she thinks of the American flag every time it crosses her desk. “It’s a better life,” Nunez said. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Mexico. Because of their sacrifices, she spent her days chatting with co-workers and her nights playing Minecraft with her boyfriend.
outside the castle walls
Sandy Doss reached for the fabric and nodded to the music playing in her headphones. Working at Annin was a second chance. A year ago, the mother of two was in prison, she said.
Doss smiled as he stared at the flag in front of him. She felt a wave of pride.
“You’re driving down the road and you see the flag and you think, ‘Oh, maybe I made it,'” Doss said. “I feel a sense of accomplishment because I was involved in it.”
In recent years, the Ann-Nin flag has flown at highway service stations, high schools, the White House and in outer space. The Artemis II mission in April carried the Unnin Banner. Astronauts have traveled the furthest distance from Earth ever traveled by humans.
Sales of national flags are sluggish due to changes in domestic politics. Demand fell during the Great Depression and the Vietnam War, but rose during World War II and the patriotic fervor of the nation’s bicentennial. Presidential elections almost always result in a spike in new orders.
Joan Sneed, 62, said she doesn’t really care whether people buy flags or not, as long as she can sew them. Being patriotic means she is “not picky.”
“I don’t want anyone telling me when I can cook, when I can’t cook, when I can go and where I can’t go,” Snead says.
Tarika Chappell, 55, sang a gospel song as she moved long red and white stripes across her desk. During her years working at Annin, she said she never really thought much about what the flag meant to her. All she cared about was that the women working for her didn’t drag it across the floor.
When she thought about being American, Chappell imagined herself sitting on the couch eating a big pot of crab legs while her seven grandchildren played on the floor. Recently, she gave an Anning flag to a neighbor who owns a restaurant.
“I want to give you the flag that I worked so hard on,” she remembers telling him.
the flag was still there
Near the front of the warehouse, a worker operates an ink-splatter machine, stamping 13 crisp stripes and a starry sky pattern onto a 3-foot-by-5-foot piece of white fabric.
After each print, the machine washes away any remaining pigment from the gears, turning the once distinct red and blue dyes into an oozing purple liquid. If you watch the stirring rhythm for a long time, the chemical scent can make you dizzy.
Or sentimental for Mark Lane.
Anin’s operations manager has strode past this site every workday for more than 20 years.
As Lane watched the machine wind up the completed flag one spring morning, he thought back to a recent trip he took with his grandchildren to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City.
Rain stared at the reflection pond there for a long time. As they walked away, his grandson spotted a hand-held American flag stuck in the gap next to one of the 2,983 names carved into the bronze.
It was Yasuhito’s flag.
Rain’s eyes filled with tears as she told the story. Although his voice cracked, he said he was moved to know that his work was helping someone remember someone they loved and lost.
“We come to work because we have to eat. We have to have a roof over our heads,” Lane said. “But what a blessing to be able to make it.”
Carissa Wadick covers America’s 250th anniversary on USA TODAY. She can be reached at kwaddick@usatoday.com.
