Hex sign

By the 1950s commercialized hex signs, aimed at the tourist market, became popular and these often include stars, compass roses, stylized birds known as distelfinks, hearts, tulips, or a tree of life.

Hearts and tulips seen on barns are commonly found on elaborately lettered and decorated birth, baptism, and marriage certificates known as fraktur.

Jacob Zook of Paradise, Pennsylvania, claimed to have originated the modern mountable sign in 1942, based on traditional designs, to be sold in souvenir gift shops to tourists along the Lincoln Highway.

[5] Modern artists may stress the symbolic meanings, for example, a horse head is used to protect animals from disease and the building from lightning and a dove represents peace and contentment.

Before this time there was no standardized term and many Pennsylvania German farmers simply called the signs as a Blume or Sterne (meaning flowers or stars).

They note that hexes are of pre-Christian Germanic origin; for instance, a circled rosette is called the Sun of the Alps in Padania (the Po Valley).

[11] Some view the designs as decorative symbols of ethnic identification, possibly originating in reaction to 19th century attempts made by the government to suppress the Pennsylvania German language.