On 2 August 1897 a national commemoration festival was held in Reykjavík. Such a festival was first held in 1875 to celebrate the constitution, and the custom had continued, with some breaks (a trace of it remains in the Westman Islanders’ national festival). Among the events was a procession from Lækjartorg to the meadows at Rauðará, where the festival was held. Members of Hið íslenska kvenfélag (the Icelandic Women’s Society) carried small blue-and-white flags fixed to sticks in the procession. At the festival ground by Rauðará, members of Hvítabandið (the White Ribbon) had also decorated their tent with the flag. Þorbjörg Sveinsdóttir, a midwife in Reykjavík and the driving force of the first society, is also said to have raised a sewn blue-and-white flag on her house on Skólavörðustígur (where the building of the Reykjavík Savings Bank, which now houses a bookshop, later stood). This was the first time the blue-and-white flag was raised in Iceland. Þorbjörg Sveinsdóttir and her nephew, Einar Benediktsson, had the idea for this national flag of Iceland’s own.
Hið íslenska kvenfélag and Hvítabandið were the first women’s societies in Reykjavík to take a political stand in the struggle for independence. Hvítabandið was led by a young woman, Ólafía Jóhannsdóttir. She was the niece of Þorbjörg Sveinsdóttir, mentioned above, and was brought up by her. Their home on Skólavörðustígur was one of the centres of debate on national affairs in the country, and there Ólafía absorbed ideas of nationhood and independence. It is therefore no surprise that these two societies were the first to raise a flag of Iceland’s own.
The event was not mentioned in the newspapers’ reports, except in Dagskrá, which Einar Benediktsson published in 1896–1899 and which was the first real daily newspaper in Iceland. It and more of the history of the two societies can, however, be read about in Sigríður Dúna Kristmundsdóttir’s book,Ólafía. Ævisaga Ólafíu Jóhannsdóttur (JPV útgáfa, 2006), and in Margrét Guðmundsdóttir’s book Aldarspor. Hvítabandið 1895-1995 (Skákprent, 1995). The minute books and Ársrit Hins íslenska kvenfélags (the Society’s yearbook) also hold sources on the event; they are kept in the Manuscript Collection of the National and University Library of Iceland. The same goes for the minute books of Hvítabandið, which are kept at the Women’s History Archives.
In Ársrit hins íslenzka kvennfjelags 1897, p. 62, there is a short account of the Society’s flag-making for the national commemoration festival: http://www.timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=2221551
The newspaper Dagskrá has a description of the national commemoration day of 3 August 1897: http://www.timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=2224969