Bellamy, Francis

Francis Bellamy, in full Francis Julius Bellamy, (born May 18, 1855, Mount Morris, New York—died August 28, 1931, Tampa, Florida), American editor and clergyman, best known for writing the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America (1892). Although it underwent several revisions, the main pledge is credited to him.

Bellamy graduated from the University of Rochester in New York in 1876 and from the Rochester Theological Seminary in 1880. He spent the next several years working as a Baptist minister in New York, New York, and Boston, Massachusetts. He was known for his fiery sermons, among them one preaching that Jesus was a socialist.

Bellamy joined the staff of The Youth’s Companion magazine in Boston in 1891. The next year, while working in the promotions department, he was chair of the committee that proposed that public schools celebrate Columbus Day, honouring the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World. Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance for that celebration. It was published in The Youth’s Companion on September 8, 1892. Bellamy’s version stated:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

The wording was changed a few times. In 1923 “my Flag” was changed to “the flag of the United States” (“of America” was added the next year by the National Flag Conference), and in 1954, at President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s urging, the U.S. Congress legislated that “under God” be added. The Pledge of Allegiance today reads:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Authorship of the pledge was disputed for some years. Besides Bellamy’s claim as author, James B. Upham, an editor of The Youth’s Companion, claimed that he had written it. Bellamy died before the issue was settled. In 1939 a committee of the U.S. Flag Association ruled in favour of Bellamy, and a detailed report issued by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1957 supported the committee’s ruling.