A new logo the National Museum of Civil War Medicine plans to unveil to the public next month will not include either the Confederate flag or the Union flag in their entirety, according to the museum’s executive director.
Marking the end of a 10-month rebranding process, the museum will unveil a new logo for its three museums on Jan. 15. In August, the museum said it was considering removing the Confederate flag from its logo as part of the rebranding process.
The museum also operates the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office and Pry House Field Hospital Museum. The Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office used a different logo than the other two museums, so an impetus for the rebrand was to have all of the logos match. However, Price said when new members joined the museum they’d get an acknowledgement letter from the Civil War Medicine Museum that featured its logo. Then he’d receive a lot of questions about using the Confederate flag in the logo. As part of the rebrand, he didn’t want to ignore those questions.
Without revealing too many details, Executive Director David Price said removing both flags in their entirety from the museum’s logo gave more opportunity for a better design.
“Taking both literal flags out freed us up to be creative and what we came up with is something unique to the museum,” Price said. “The colors we chose are purposeful. The elements are purposeful.”
The logo’s centerpiece will be a shield, Price said, with several elements incorporated in and around it. The shield is a well-known logo for various medical organizations. It’s a nod to the museum’s core mission, which is that of medicine, and how the Civil War became the genesis for modern medicine, Price said.
“It had to be there,” Price said. “It had to be there front and center because of our name.”
Part of the process included a public survey that received more than 3,000 responses. One of the questions asked people what the Confederate flag meant to them — a question that can evoke an array of answers. Surprisingly, most of the responses were “in the middle,” Price said.
“I think us being a historic museum changes the way a lot of people answer that question,” he said.
After developing more than 100 options, the museum narrowed down to eight finalists.
But much of the discussion surrounding narrowing to the final design centered on the symbol itself and not the use of the flags, Price said. It was clear the museum should not leave the Civil War behind, which means incorporating some element of the flags. But the most critical point of the new logo was to convey the medicinal aspects of the museum.
Upon the final decision, the museum did a soft unveiling of the design in its “Surgeon’s Call” publication for its members. The museum is currently getting the logo put on its business cards and on merchandise that it will sell to visitors to the museum’s shop. Merchandise with the old logo that includes the Confederate flag will remain for sale as well, Price said.
Price is hopeful some merchandise will be available Jan. 15 for the unveiling, but couldn’t commit to that as of Friday.
The feedback from members on the new logo has been that of excitement, Price said, and he’s hopeful the community will react similarly. Logos and re-brandings can lead to harsh reactions.
“We saw how the logo went for the city of Frederick and we don’t want that to happen again,” Price said.
Follow Allen Etzler on Twitter:
@AllenWEtzler.
(31) comments
If you want to see how the Confederate Battle Flag is seen today, look no further than here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally#/media/File:Charlottesville_'Unite_the_Right'_Rally_(35780274914)_crop.jpg God Bless America!
Just more political correctness. Are we still allowed to say the word " Confederacy " ?
I don't care what the logo is. Not sure why so many care - either for or against. I care even less about this than the logo for Frederick.
It’s a really good museum. If you haven’t visited it yet, I highly recommend you do.
Yeah, you seem like a real avid museum attendee...
I've been there a few times. The displays change occasionally so it's good to re-visit every now and then. Be thankful for modern medicine. Civil War medicine had actually advanced little from Medieval medicine, or even that of the Ancient Greeks; it only became 'modern' from about 1880 on, trying to catch up with French (Pasteur) and German (Koch) medicine. This is well covered in John Barry's excellent book about the 1918 Pandemic.
My God, this country is so weak.
Take Trump and start a new one somewhere.......far away. You can make everything exactly as you want it. Solid White, no Government, no Taxes, Slavery, no Liberals, no restrictions on any kind of weapon, no trees to hug, no food stamps, lots of prisons...with Gallows, strict schools up to 6th grade only, oil wells, no Windmills, Twitter, Evangelical Churches, and anything else your hearts desire. And of course it will be called TRUMPLand.
Maybe you should go. Trump has done more for "non white" citizens in 3 years than the last one did in 8.
You just described Rutopia, the Republican Utopia. Evangelical churches? If you're going to have those you need liars, fornicators and amoral thugs; else the Evangelicals would have no one to worship. But Rutopia would be expected to have plenty of such characters. Even Rutopia must have an economy. It must produce something if only if nothing else to trade to its neighbors for cash. Maybe abortion services. Some countries export 100% of certain commodities, e.g., coffee, while providing only cheap imported junk for their own citizens. Well Rutopia, which would outlaw all domestic abortions of course, could offer them to foreigners as a means of obtaining hard currency. Where should Rutopia be built? I nominate Alabama or Russia.
The article states "The logo’s centerpiece will be a shield, Price said, with several elements incorporated in and around it. The shield is a well-known logo for various medical organizations." Was the shield a well known logo for medical organizations of the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War? I would certainly hope either the rod of Asclepius or the caduceus would be the central focus of the new logo. Beyond that I don't know how they will incorporate any recognizable Union and Confederate symbols. The two flags along with the caduceus made it quick and easy to understand what the museum was about even without any words.
Exactly MD1756. The perfect logo needs no additional words, nor explanation. Everyone recognized the flags, and understands the caduceus as the symbol for medicine.
It's ok to display historical flags, even treasonous ones, in museums. For example even Germany permits display of the swastika, the sig rune and other Nazi symbols in art, museums and educational contexts, though they must sometimes be of a low visibility design.
The CSA was no more treasonous than were the Founding generation.
What was the name of the Founding Father who fired artillery at a Union Fortress, again?
I’ll bite. Who might that be?
A very simple and, to me, logical answer would to have just replaced the battle flag with the Stars and Bars since it's the battle flag that gets people whining and not the national flag.
So very sad that this museum is falling into the trap of turning its back on history. I suggest in the rebranding process they take "history" out of their name. The mayor of Frederick started an avalanche of terrible rebranding efforts.
[thumbup]
Yes, niceund, a history of kidnapping, oppression, cruelty, murder, family separation and treating human beings like cattle. All in the name of keeping the southern aristocracy and its' economic force solvent.
This description describes the USA, right?
It's history...good and bad.
“Union flag” means the flag of the United States of America, right?
Yes. the Union Flag is the flag of the US.
The Confederate flag is the flag of traitors who sought to destroy the Union. Just as we don’t give mass murderers the honor of speaking their names, we do not need to honor the Confederacy by showing its flag.
A museum about that era ought to display the Confederate flag appropriately. But it shouldn’t denigrate the Stars and Stripes by referring to it as the “union” flag.
That's what it was called at the time, as the USA was referred to as the "Union". Calling it the Flag of the USA might confuse it with the current flag.
And the flag of the US represents a bunch of treasonous people (at that time) who sought to and did overthrow the legitimate authority (the British government) in a large part becuase the colonists objected to the taxes the legitimate government levied on the colonists to help pay for a world war the colonists started (known as the French and Indian War here or the Seven Years War elsewhere). In fact the King of England tried to stop the colonists' expansion into the west (past the Appalachian Mountains) by a proclamation in 1763 (at the end of the F&I war) becuase he didn't want further conflicts with the Indians. The colonists objected to not being able to settle in the "west" or purchase lands west of the proclamation line. The primary difference of why our flag is not reviled is we won the war. Does it make what we did right? Would it be ok for the citizens of DC to rebel becuase they have "taxation without representation?"
This is REALLY true and a great brief!
Just goes to show just how ignorant so many Americans are about their history. Witness some of the above comments, as well as this so-called ""re-branding"" by the museum.
This is shameful and I am ashamed of the museum. I visited this museum once, back in about 1999. If I ever get back to Fredrick, I'll be sure NOT to visit this tyme.
The American revolution was obviously treasonous, but we now have a representative government, so I think it would be wrong (and treasonous) to go to war against our government.
The Constitution allowed for secession. The complexity of the Civil War cannot be boiled down to one person’s point of view. The Confederate Flag needs to stay. Revisionist History is dumbing down the American population. History is what it in.
It needs to stay in museums, books, and the internet. I think we all agree on that. Nobody is trying to revise history.
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it clean. No vulgar, racist, sexist or sexually-oriented language.
Engage ideas. This forum is for the exchange of ideas, not personal attacks or ad hominem criticisms.
TURN OFF CAPS LOCK.
Be civil. Don't threaten. Don't lie. Don't bait. Don't degrade others.
No trolling. Stay on topic.
No spamming. This is not the place to sell miracle cures.
No deceptive names. Apparently misleading usernames are not allowed.
Say it once. No repetitive posts, please.
Help us. Use the 'Report' link for abusive posts.