C.S. CROSSON

Thirteen 13-Star National Flag
Possibly New York, 1912
Oil on canvas, 27 x 33 ½ inches, in a period fumed oak frame.
Signed and dated lower right: “C. S. Crosson / July 4, 1912.”

This bold and graphic depiction of a thirteen-star American flag, waiving against a vibrant blue sky, may have been a discreet protest by the artist, as its date of July 4, 1912, is significant in flag history. On that date the forty-eight-star American flag was adopted by President William Howard Taft and its design was officially standardized. The standardization specified the flag’s proportions, the arrangement of the stars (six rows of eight stars each), and that each star would point upward. The forty-eight-star flag became necessary after Arizona and New Mexico became the forty-seventh and forty-eighth states in 1912. The forty-eight-star flag remained the official flag of the United States until 1959, when it was replaced by the forty-nine-star flag with Alaska’s statehood. The fifty-star flag was adopted in 1960 after Hawaii became a state.

A potential identification of “C.S. Crosson” may be Charles Stephen Crosson, who was born in Manhattan in 1882 to Charles H. Crosson (1859-1910) and Lucredtia Gilbert (born 1853). Charles S. Crosson married Mary Pendergast, an Irish immigrant, and the couple had four children between 1909 and 1916, residing in New York and Staten Island. Charles Stephen Crosson served as a New York City policeman with distinction and received seven citations for his bravery, alertness, and exceptional service. He retired in 1934 as a patrolman in the Tottenville precinct and passed away in 1958.