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Books on US flags

[bra92]: Brandt, Sue R., State Flags Including the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, New York, Franklin Watts, 1992; The least serious of the books that I have in my collection that purport to cover the U.S. state flags. It's down to one illustration and one sparse page of text that explains the symbolism and some of the state's history but rarely anything about the flag's history. One example: It illustrates the new Nevada flag (with "NEVADA" below the star rather than circling it) and cheerfully states that the flag was adopted in 1929 with no clarifying remarks.
[hab89]: Haban, Rita D., How Proudly They Wave--Flags of the Fifty States, Minneapolis, Minn., Lerner Publications Co., 1989; This book goes through the states, giving each one 1 illustration (unlike Smith's, which illustrates the flags at various points in the state's history) and about 2 pages of text. Unlike the next book, it still attempts to give a serious history of the flag.
[mas73]: Mastai, The Stars and the Stripes, 1973
[ric82]: Edward W. Richardson, Standards and colors of the American Revolution, Philadelphia, 1982, 341 pages; This book is an encyclopedic reference on the design, emblems, and unit designations of flags of the American Revolution. Primary source material - surviving originals; contemporary paintings, drawings, and prints; and the orders, journals, and letters of participants - have been used to avoid the interpretation errors of earlier historians." This statement from the preface pretty well sums up this fully-illustrated account of the flags of this era.
[sha41]: Shankle, George E., State Names, Flags, Seals, Songs, Birds, Flowers and Other Symbols, rev. ed., New York, H.W. Wilson Co., 1941; This book was in print for a long time. There were editions in 1934 and 1938. The 4th printing of the second edition, which is what I own, came out in 1951. For the flags and seals the author states that the contents of the book simply reports the laws concerning the flag. Inspection shows that this results in uneven coverage, from the 5 lines on the flag of Kentucky to the 7 pages on the flag of Texas filled with detailed regulations on what one could do with the Texan flag. A most useful resource if you're looking for the pre-1940 legislative history of a state flag.
[she89]: Shearer, Benjamin F and Barbara S. Shearer, State Names, Seals, Flags, and Symbols--A Historical Guide, New York, Greenwood Press, 1989; This book is a concious effort to update the book by Shankle. Its coverage is very similar, though greater editorial input has resulted in somewhat more even coverage, regardless of how verbose a given state legislature was on the subject of their flag.
[smi75]: Smith, Whitney, The Flag Book of the United States--The Story of the Stars and Stripes and the Flags of the Fifty States, rev. ed., New York, William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1975; The earlier edition was copyright 1970. Probably still the best overall reference (what can I say, Dr. Smith does good work), though it is naturally missing all the recent changes. Makes a serious attempt to track the history of the state's flag for each state, and is probably the best book for the question you ask.

For more in-depth material, there are also a few books on the flags of a single state, such as Cannon, The Flags of Tennessee, and there are even books such as Sumrall, Battle Flags of Texans in the Confederacy. There are also articles, such as the history of the most recent change to the flag of Nevada that was published in the 1994 copy of Raven.

John Radel, 1995-OCT-21