The Sentinel

Congress spent six years and three committees choosing a national emblem. The first committee, in 1776, included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and its proposal was set aside. The design that finally stuck came from Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress, who adapted earlier proposals, and it was approved on June 20, 1782.

Thomson's seal puts a bald eagle at the center, holding an olive branch in one talon and a bundle of thirteen arrows in the other. The eagle's head is turned toward the olive branch, a way of saying the new nation preferred peace but would be ready for war.

That seal is still the one on the back of the one-dollar bill.

In this picture the bird is a close-up in profile, head and neck built from thick white and gray strokes, with a hooked golden beak and a hard yellow eye. Behind him the ground is nearly black, and red, cobalt and gold paint is thrown across it in arcs and flecks, bright and fast against a very still bird.