May 18, 2009 • 20 mins
Did Betsy Ross really make the first American flag, or is this just another revolutionary legend? Learn the myths and facts about Betsy Ross and the first American flag in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Keener, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath. Heye, Jane,
you know, it's funny about American culture. We don't really
(00:23):
have a long history like many other nations do. Yeah.
So it's so true when I look at when I researched,
like the history of European cultures in general and especially,
it's like America's a baby. It's compared to other countries.
It's like taking the Crying of Lot forty nine, this
little novella and comparing it to a Tale of Two Cities,
this huge, chunky Dickensie and novel. There's just not that
(00:45):
much to our history. And so when well, that's not fair.
There's not that much chronologically to our history. And so
I get very frustrated when a story that I've grown
up believing in may not be true. And let me
qualify to that. When I say there's not much to
American his straight, I'm not speaking about the indigenous American
Indians who were here before the settlers and colonists came.
(01:06):
I'm talking about a timeline that starts with George Washington
era American nation rights exactly, the colonies and um to
the point today that we're in. And I'm especially frustrated
to learn that the story of Betsy Ross making the
first American flag may not be true because I feel
(01:26):
like there are so many men who get credit for
the different um aspects of our culture that shaped our
nation to what it is today. I really like the
idea that a woman is do credit for something that
we still honor and use on a daily basis. But
as it turns out, that may not be true. The
credit for the American flag may actually go to a
man as well. It's a pretty complicated situation. We don't
(01:49):
really know exactly what happened and how true it is.
And I was really shocked to having learned like all
the different facets that went into the story. And it's
got a little controversy going on about Betsy Ross. Yeah,
and even if you go to the official Betsy Ross
House website, they say, um so historical fact or well
loved legend. The story of Betsy Ross is as Americans
(02:12):
apple pie, after your visit, decide what you believe. Well,
Jane and I did not get a chance to visit
Betsy Ross house. So we're gonna have to decide what
we believe um from the confines of our cubicles in
the Health staff Works dot Com office. So here guess.
So to give you some background on Betsy Ross herself,
she was born January one, seventeen fifty two, as Elizabeth Griscombe,
(02:37):
and she was the eighth of seventeen kids in her
Quaker family. She was originally born in New Jersey, but
when she was about three, her dad, who was a
pretty successful carpenter, moved the family to Philadelphia, the bustling
urban area. And when you think of Betsy Ross, you
may imagine her as a very humble and make woman
wearing her little calico print dress with the white apron
(02:59):
and the little death streffle cap and um. We've we've
heard before that she was a seamstress, but she was
actually an upholsterer, which deepens my respect for her because
I think it would be, you know, far more difficult
for a woman to handle such heavy fabrics as rugs
and curtains and Venetian blinds, even that she had to
grapple with. And not only was she trained as a seamstress,
(03:22):
but she apprenticed as an upholsterer in Philadelphia with another
very steamed upholsterer named John Webster. And um, she actually
met another upholsterer with whom she fell in love, and
that way was John Ross. This is a really cute story. Yeah,
because John Ross came from an Anglican family, was sort
of a son of a preacher man even because his
(03:43):
dad was assistant rector of Christ Church. So when John
and Betsy fell in love, her family, her Quaker family,
didn't approve of it. Starcross lovers, Yeah, yeah, it was
really sweet. And so they actually eloped because her family
didn't approve it, they had to elope. They fled across
the Delaware of her. They married in a Hugs tavern
in New Jersey, and they later returned to Philadelphia and
(04:06):
opened a shop together, you know, the two upholsterers. And
unfortunately that didn't last you long because John was part
of the local militia and he was killed in a
gunpowder explosion I think only two years into their marriage.
She was really treaded and they hadn't even had children
yet at that point. In a widow at twenty four,
and so she was sitting little for a little while,
(04:28):
and then she met Joseph Ashburne and she later married him.
And he was a seaman and when he was at sea,
his ship was captured by the British and he was
tossed into prison and before the British released American prisoners
in two contracted a strange illness and he died. And
unbeknownst to Joseph Ashburne, at home, Betsy had given birth
(04:50):
to their second child, and their first child had actually
passed away when she was only about nine months old.
So at this point tragedy had struck three times. It
has been some one child. Um, so she had a
really tough life. We don't usually think about Betsy Ross
in that way, but yeah, Tuton widow by this time.
It was about seventeen eighty three when she married again.
(05:12):
This was This is also kind of a cute story
because she was old friends with the man named John
Claypool and they sort of rekindled the relationship after the
death of her second husband. And what's also sweet about
this is that during this marriage she was able to
rejoin the Quakers. The Quaker friends in this particular sect
of the of the Quakers was actually not traditional because
they supported America's fight for independence, and you might know
(05:35):
that Quakers traditionally are pacifists, so this is an interesting
um facet about her her faith. By this time, Betsy
had about uh well, she had five daughters with John Claypool,
but unfortunately one daughter died young and John and Betsy
were married for thirty four years, but he actually became
(05:56):
disabled later in life due to some battle injuries, and
so she was caring for him in addition to caring
for four daughters. And then in sevente her mother, father,
and sister were all killed by an outbreak of yellow fever,
so she got custody of her niece. So at this
time she's got six children living under her care, plus
(06:16):
a disabled husband, and she's running the household. So her
daughter Clarissa is actually helping her with her business. And
by this time Betsy is supplementing the income she makes
as an upholsterer with helping out with um I guess
like tents and soldiers uniforms and things like this from
the war that she can make a little bit of
extra pocket money on the side. And she actually continued
(06:38):
her business for fifty years and then she finally retired.
She retired and by about eighty one years old, I
think she she was officially blind, unfortunately, and a few
years later she she died in eighteen thirty six peacefully.
And so even though she had a hard love, she
died peaceful, she did. And so to know this background
(07:00):
who Betsy Ross wise, it really helps to enhance my
understanding of the Betsy Ross myth because you hear that
George Washington and this Congressional committee, or at least they
called themselves, that Congressional Committee of Robert Morris and George Ross,
supposedly turned to Betsy, who was not only a fixture
(07:23):
in the community as an esteemed upholsterer and an esteemed businesswoman,
but she was seen as like a good community member.
I think she was a friendly woman. And obviously to
care for a household like that, she had to have
had a really plucky spirit and a really hearty sense
of business about her. Right. And to give you a
little context about um the famous flag story, this occurred
pretty soon after the death of her first husband, John
(07:46):
in seventeen seventy six. About so, like you mentioned these
three men, uh George Ross, that might spark up interest
because they have the same lest name. He was actually
a relation of her late husband. He was he was
his uncle, and so it's it's plausible, you know, that
these three men would would come to Betsy. And also
in addition to that, part of the story is that
(08:07):
George Washington was actually a friend of the family, friend
of Betsy's, and he had called on Betsy a few
times socially and professionally at her upholster shop. So these
three men come in, like you said, they say they're
part of a Congressional flag committee. And George Washington takes
out a scrap of paper and on it it has
a sketch of what he sees as his idea for
(08:28):
the flag of the new nation, and he asks if
she can sew it, and like you mentioned, she said,
I do not know, but I will try. Um and
I'm daunted spirits Yeah, and uh one one really cute
part of the story. My favorite part is that she
suggested an alteration to the design. I mean to the
gal to go up to George Washington and say, um,
(08:48):
I don't really like your your design and gonna do
something different. She actually suggested um five pointed stars rather
than six pointed stars, which was not standard at that time, right,
And I've read that she actually took out of a
pair of scissors and just snipped off from one of
the points of the star to show them how greatly
it could be improved with this minor alteration. And the
(09:10):
flag was not only a symbol for the fledgling nation,
was also a really important tool for helping to identify
sides and different skirmishes that were breaking out during the war,
because up until this point they've been using the Union Jack,
which was the British flag inside the design of another flag,
and that could be pretty confusing. So they needed something
(09:30):
that looked really different, something that was distinctly a part
of the you know, young United States. And apart from
the practical reasons, obviously, you know you're breaking from your colonizers.
You want to have a flag that's that's drastically different
from from from Britain at this time, and so the flag,
I think both practical and very symbolic reasons. You know,
(09:52):
it's close to their hearts, right. So my perception of
Betsy Ross would be that she was a pretty gregary,
as outgoing woman, hard worker. I can't imagine she was
a sort of woman who went home at the end
of the day and hung her head and didn't say
hello to her neighbors. And I don't think this congressional
committee had bound her to secrecy in any way. So
(10:13):
that's why it's so peculiar to me that none of
the colonists at the time heard this Betsy Ross story.
I mean, you put yourself in her shoes. Jane say
that Barack Obama came up to euro and said, you
know what, I really think we need a new flag
for foreign nation. And you said, okay, Barack, I think
what you've got going here is pretty good. But instead
(10:33):
of um navy blue, why don't you use teal and
you make this brand new flag. You would tell people,
wouldn't you. Yeah, I mean I would. I would publicize it.
I would probably first say I can't so I can
write an article for you, but do not know, but
I will try. Um. But yeah, yeah, it is weird.
So Betsy didn't tell anyone, and it wasn't until um what,
(10:55):
almost a century after this this event supposedly went down
that her grandson William Cambay in eighteen seventy addressed the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania with a speech about his paper,
the History of the Flag of the United States, and
this paper was based on stories oral stories he'd heard
(11:16):
from his grandmother Beth Stay. Yeah, and this is an
important part is that Canby was very open about the
fact that he had no hard evidence to support the story.
You know, this was, like you mentioned, almost a century
eighteen seventy when he made the speech, and so um,
he could only rely on the stories he had heard
from his grandmother, his late grandmother. By this point, you know,
(11:37):
if he if you hear some the story from your
own grandmother, you're likely to believe it, you know, And
so you can see why it Canby wanted to publicize
this really fantastic story. But it is sad that he
had no evidence to back himself. It was all anecdotal
and the refrain we keep repeating the I do not know,
but I will try. I promise last time I'll say it. Um.
I suppose like that's a line that kept being handed
(11:59):
down and re retelling of the story. And obviously, you know,
he very much was loyal to his grandmother and wanted
to get this down for the history books, that his
grandmother had created the first flag of the United States,
and there are definitely reasons to suspect that that's true.
Like we said before, if George Ross was her late
(12:20):
husband's uncle, he might have known that Betsy could have
been struggling financially and she needed a little bit of
extra work to help out, you know, with the home,
and so he could have told George Washington and Robert Morris,
you know, let's go to backstage. She can help us
with this flag. She could really use the money. Um.
One problem with that too, though, is the fact that
if there were actually a Congressional Flag committee, you think
(12:42):
that there would be a hard there would be records
of it, because Concress is pretty good about keeping records,
and there's no evidence of that of such a committee.
One writer, Ed Cruz brought up the point that if
there were such a committee, it's really unlikely that that
George Washington would be a member of it because he
wasn't a member of Congress. And so my response to
that would be, maybe Betsy didn't quite understand how they
(13:05):
were identifying themselves. Maybe she just abolished the story. Shouldn't
really know what sort of representation they were making of themselves.
She just called them some sort of congressional committee, or
maybe she even said, you know, these men came and
family members later retold the story and said they were
a congressional committee. But you're really go for it, Betsy.
(13:26):
But um June fourteen, seventeen seventy seven, Congress passed a
law about the flag and clearly identified the flag as
having thirteen red and white stripes and thirteen stars on
a blue background, not dissimilar to the one that Betsy
was said to have helped make. Yeah, so that's one
piece of evidence we know, like we know by that
point they had started, they knew what the flag was
(13:47):
going to look like. And then even more concrete evidence
would be that on seventy seven, the Pennsylvania State Navy
Board paid Betsy for making flags. The problem here is
did they pay her for making the first original American
flag or did he pay her for recreating and making
more of the same design already? And not to play
(14:08):
devil's advocate, I think you're gonna lench me in a
few seconds for bringing all these holes in the story.
But there's no evidence to show that George Washington actually
knew or dealt with Betsy like the story says he
was supposed to be a family friend who had called
on her many times. There's no evidence in letters or
anything that Washington never mentioned her name or anything like that.
And I mean that's not to say that this is
evidence against. It's just lack of evidence. So we need
(14:31):
to keep that in mind when we're thinking about the
historical accuracy of the story. I guess. So this brings
us to part two of the Grand American Flag story,
and that is a real renaissance man and kind of
a looker, judging from his old photographs, um well not photographs,
is before photographs, office portraits, I should say. And that's
(14:51):
Francis Hopkinson, who was descended from an Englishman who was
actually friends with Benjamin Franklin, and his father died when
Frances was pretty young, and his widowed mother made it
a priority to give Frances a really good education. I
think most mothers look at their children and think, oh,
they're very gifted. I wanted to do right by them.
(15:12):
But in this case, she knew Frances was something special
and he kind of was. And I suspect he kind
of knew it too. Yeah, you think he's got an
arrogant idea, but he graduated from the College of Philadelphia
and became a lawyer. And in addition to law, he
also dabbled in science, music, poetry, painting, and he was
known for his satirical quips. One thing I like about
(15:35):
at Hopkinson is that he was an accomplished harpsichord player,
and he actually composed a lot of songs, of secular
and religious songs. And Um also a man after my
own heart. He were a lot of literary essays, and
so you can see that he was an incredibly accomplished guy.
And in addition to those attributes, he was also a
congressman of New Jersey and a signer at the Declaration
(15:55):
of Independence. Yeah, so nothing to sneeze it right there.
And in addition to that, he was a judge later
in life, and he was UM. He was a big
pusher for the Constitution and he wrote a lot of
articles that pushed for Pennsylvania to ratify it. So he
he was He was an influential UM politician as well.
So his name comes up in this debate about the
(16:16):
American flag because supposedly Um he wrote a lot of
letters requesting payment for his design of the American flag,
and he certainly designed a lot of things, and even
his personalized book plate which got circulated inside a book
that he lent to someone and got tossed around through
a few hands and eventually came back into his possession.
(16:37):
Had a book plate that had three six pointed stars,
and as you'll recall, the six pointed star was the
design that Betsy shot down and improved upon. But I
guess that became sort of a trademark of Hopkinson's, or
at least associated with his name. Yea, and among his
other like really accomplished things. We know that he designed
or helped design things such as the steal for the
(16:59):
State of New Jersey, Continental Board of Admiralty, Seal uh
seal for American Philosophical Society, for the Treasury too, yeah yeah,
and for the Great Seal of the United States. Apparently
he had hand in that and there as a side
note to that. Um. So there are suggestions that he
was a Mason and he helped, you know, incorporate these
Masonic uh um uh symbols and and clues into the
(17:22):
Great Seal of United States. But that's a whole podcast
on its own. So so he started this letter writing
campaign after he supposedly created the flag because he wanted
to be compensated for his work, and he started with
a letter to the Board of Admiralty and then one
to Congress, which actually included a bill for all of
his design. My favorite part of the story is that
when he when he wrote the original letter, he wanted
(17:44):
compensation in the form of a quarter cask of public wine, which,
like you mentioned to me earlier, candices that I think
I should get paid that for my writing my article.
I'm not going to argue with that um. And I
think that this letter, the second one, actually the one
to Congress, got lost or I got ignored in the
bureaucratic shuffle of the Board of Treasury. So he resubmitted
(18:07):
another letter, and this time he itemized all the different
charges for all of his different designs. We know for
a fact that there are journals from the Continental Congress
that gives some evidentiary support to the fact that Hopkinson
made the flag. But the Board of Treasury really stood
firm by the idea that and this is a direct quote,
he was not the only person consulted on the flags design,
(18:31):
which leads me to believe that perhaps Betsy Ross came
up the very nascent design for the flag and then
it was passed along to Hopkinson for approval and embellishment. Yeah,
or I would think actually the other way around because
of his six pointed um. Yeah. And so so maybe
it was passed to Betsy after that, and maybe that
was part of the scrip of paper that she supposedly
(18:51):
looked at and based based her a design on. Well,
in the end, we can't really be sure. And if
you look at different websites out there about the American flag,
and especially ones that are devoted to Hopkinson or devoted
to Ross, there's some very biased points of view. So
we've been walking I think a fine line in presenting information.
(19:12):
Obviously I'm swaying towards the Vetsy Ross side because I'd
like to see Um the woman get some credit where
I think it's do. But the moral of the story,
if there is one, is keep good records, you know,
keep good records. There's no reason that as young as
our nation is, that the information about who created the
first flag shouldn't be on file somewhere. Well, now we
(19:32):
have like picture phones and stuff, so we can, you know,
if George Washington or Barack Obama comes in, we can
we can stab a picture to prove it. There you go, exactly,
and not too long ago, I actually blogged about um
the story of the Star Spangled Banner, based on a
flag that was flown at Fort McHenry and Francis Scott
Key was inspired by the battle so much that he
(19:53):
wrote the star Spangled Banner And that blog post was
actually based on a reader request. And that's what we
do on the stuff you Missed in History Class blog.
We're just that kind of kind of podcast, you guys.
You write to us with questions and we will do
our best to answer them. That's right. Me and Candice
write every day we post on the stuff you missed
in History Class blog on how stuff works dot com
(20:13):
and uh, come and take a look and leave comments
and let you know, let us know what you think.
And as always, you can still reach us by email
at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com. And
we certainly hope that you will visit the website to
read this great article that Jane wrote called did Betsy
Ross really make the first American Flag? On how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
(20:38):
other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Keener, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath. Heye, Jane,
you know, it's funny about American culture. We don't really
(00:23):
have a long history like many other nations do. Yeah.
So it's so true when I look at when I researched,
like the history of European cultures in general and especially,
it's like America's a baby. It's compared to other countries.
It's like taking the Crying of Lot forty nine, this
little novella and comparing it to a Tale of Two Cities,
this huge, chunky Dickensie and novel. There's just not that
(00:45):
much to our history. And so when well, that's not fair.
There's not that much chronologically to our history. And so
I get very frustrated when a story that I've grown
up believing in may not be true. And let me
qualify to that. When I say there's not much to
American his straight, I'm not speaking about the indigenous American
Indians who were here before the settlers and colonists came.
(01:06):
I'm talking about a timeline that starts with George Washington
era American nation rights exactly, the colonies and um to
the point today that we're in. And I'm especially frustrated
to learn that the story of Betsy Ross making the
first American flag may not be true because I feel
(01:26):
like there are so many men who get credit for
the different um aspects of our culture that shaped our
nation to what it is today. I really like the
idea that a woman is do credit for something that
we still honor and use on a daily basis. But
as it turns out, that may not be true. The
credit for the American flag may actually go to a
man as well. It's a pretty complicated situation. We don't
(01:49):
really know exactly what happened and how true it is.
And I was really shocked to having learned like all
the different facets that went into the story. And it's
got a little controversy going on about Betsy Ross. Yeah,
and even if you go to the official Betsy Ross
House website, they say, um so historical fact or well
loved legend. The story of Betsy Ross is as Americans
(02:12):
apple pie, after your visit, decide what you believe. Well,
Jane and I did not get a chance to visit
Betsy Ross house. So we're gonna have to decide what
we believe um from the confines of our cubicles in
the Health staff Works dot Com office. So here guess.
So to give you some background on Betsy Ross herself,
she was born January one, seventeen fifty two, as Elizabeth Griscombe,
(02:37):
and she was the eighth of seventeen kids in her
Quaker family. She was originally born in New Jersey, but
when she was about three, her dad, who was a
pretty successful carpenter, moved the family to Philadelphia, the bustling
urban area. And when you think of Betsy Ross, you
may imagine her as a very humble and make woman
wearing her little calico print dress with the white apron
(02:59):
and the little death streffle cap and um. We've we've
heard before that she was a seamstress, but she was
actually an upholsterer, which deepens my respect for her because
I think it would be, you know, far more difficult
for a woman to handle such heavy fabrics as rugs
and curtains and Venetian blinds, even that she had to
grapple with. And not only was she trained as a seamstress,
(03:22):
but she apprenticed as an upholsterer in Philadelphia with another
very steamed upholsterer named John Webster. And um, she actually
met another upholsterer with whom she fell in love, and
that way was John Ross. This is a really cute story. Yeah,
because John Ross came from an Anglican family, was sort
of a son of a preacher man even because his
(03:43):
dad was assistant rector of Christ Church. So when John
and Betsy fell in love, her family, her Quaker family,
didn't approve of it. Starcross lovers, Yeah, yeah, it was
really sweet. And so they actually eloped because her family
didn't approve it, they had to elope. They fled across
the Delaware of her. They married in a Hugs tavern
in New Jersey, and they later returned to Philadelphia and
(04:06):
opened a shop together, you know, the two upholsterers. And
unfortunately that didn't last you long because John was part
of the local militia and he was killed in a
gunpowder explosion I think only two years into their marriage.
She was really treaded and they hadn't even had children
yet at that point. In a widow at twenty four,
and so she was sitting little for a little while,
(04:28):
and then she met Joseph Ashburne and she later married him.
And he was a seaman and when he was at sea,
his ship was captured by the British and he was
tossed into prison and before the British released American prisoners
in two contracted a strange illness and he died. And
unbeknownst to Joseph Ashburne, at home, Betsy had given birth
(04:50):
to their second child, and their first child had actually
passed away when she was only about nine months old.
So at this point tragedy had struck three times. It
has been some one child. Um, so she had a
really tough life. We don't usually think about Betsy Ross
in that way, but yeah, Tuton widow by this time.
It was about seventeen eighty three when she married again.
(05:12):
This was This is also kind of a cute story
because she was old friends with the man named John
Claypool and they sort of rekindled the relationship after the
death of her second husband. And what's also sweet about
this is that during this marriage she was able to
rejoin the Quakers. The Quaker friends in this particular sect
of the of the Quakers was actually not traditional because
they supported America's fight for independence, and you might know
(05:35):
that Quakers traditionally are pacifists, so this is an interesting
um facet about her her faith. By this time, Betsy
had about uh well, she had five daughters with John Claypool,
but unfortunately one daughter died young and John and Betsy
were married for thirty four years, but he actually became
(05:56):
disabled later in life due to some battle injuries, and
so she was caring for him in addition to caring
for four daughters. And then in sevente her mother, father,
and sister were all killed by an outbreak of yellow fever,
so she got custody of her niece. So at this
time she's got six children living under her care, plus
(06:16):
a disabled husband, and she's running the household. So her
daughter Clarissa is actually helping her with her business. And
by this time Betsy is supplementing the income she makes
as an upholsterer with helping out with um I guess
like tents and soldiers uniforms and things like this from
the war that she can make a little bit of
extra pocket money on the side. And she actually continued
(06:38):
her business for fifty years and then she finally retired.
She retired and by about eighty one years old, I
think she she was officially blind, unfortunately, and a few
years later she she died in eighteen thirty six peacefully.
And so even though she had a hard love, she
died peaceful, she did. And so to know this background
(07:00):
who Betsy Ross wise, it really helps to enhance my
understanding of the Betsy Ross myth because you hear that
George Washington and this Congressional committee, or at least they
called themselves, that Congressional Committee of Robert Morris and George Ross,
supposedly turned to Betsy, who was not only a fixture
(07:23):
in the community as an esteemed upholsterer and an esteemed businesswoman,
but she was seen as like a good community member.
I think she was a friendly woman. And obviously to
care for a household like that, she had to have
had a really plucky spirit and a really hearty sense
of business about her. Right. And to give you a
little context about um the famous flag story, this occurred
pretty soon after the death of her first husband, John
(07:46):
in seventeen seventy six. About so, like you mentioned these
three men, uh George Ross, that might spark up interest
because they have the same lest name. He was actually
a relation of her late husband. He was he was
his uncle, and so it's it's plausible, you know, that
these three men would would come to Betsy. And also
in addition to that, part of the story is that
(08:07):
George Washington was actually a friend of the family, friend
of Betsy's, and he had called on Betsy a few
times socially and professionally at her upholster shop. So these
three men come in, like you said, they say they're
part of a Congressional flag committee. And George Washington takes
out a scrap of paper and on it it has
a sketch of what he sees as his idea for
(08:28):
the flag of the new nation, and he asks if
she can sew it, and like you mentioned, she said,
I do not know, but I will try. Um and
I'm daunted spirits Yeah, and uh one one really cute
part of the story. My favorite part is that she
suggested an alteration to the design. I mean to the
gal to go up to George Washington and say, um,
(08:48):
I don't really like your your design and gonna do
something different. She actually suggested um five pointed stars rather
than six pointed stars, which was not standard at that time, right,
And I've read that she actually took out of a
pair of scissors and just snipped off from one of
the points of the star to show them how greatly
it could be improved with this minor alteration. And the
(09:10):
flag was not only a symbol for the fledgling nation,
was also a really important tool for helping to identify
sides and different skirmishes that were breaking out during the war,
because up until this point they've been using the Union Jack,
which was the British flag inside the design of another flag,
and that could be pretty confusing. So they needed something
(09:30):
that looked really different, something that was distinctly a part
of the you know, young United States. And apart from
the practical reasons, obviously, you know you're breaking from your colonizers.
You want to have a flag that's that's drastically different
from from from Britain at this time, and so the flag,
I think both practical and very symbolic reasons. You know,
(09:52):
it's close to their hearts, right. So my perception of
Betsy Ross would be that she was a pretty gregary,
as outgoing woman, hard worker. I can't imagine she was
a sort of woman who went home at the end
of the day and hung her head and didn't say
hello to her neighbors. And I don't think this congressional
committee had bound her to secrecy in any way. So
(10:13):
that's why it's so peculiar to me that none of
the colonists at the time heard this Betsy Ross story.
I mean, you put yourself in her shoes. Jane say
that Barack Obama came up to euro and said, you
know what, I really think we need a new flag
for foreign nation. And you said, okay, Barack, I think
what you've got going here is pretty good. But instead
(10:33):
of um navy blue, why don't you use teal and
you make this brand new flag. You would tell people,
wouldn't you. Yeah, I mean I would. I would publicize it.
I would probably first say I can't so I can
write an article for you, but do not know, but
I will try. Um. But yeah, yeah, it is weird.
So Betsy didn't tell anyone, and it wasn't until um what,
(10:55):
almost a century after this this event supposedly went down
that her grandson William Cambay in eighteen seventy addressed the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania with a speech about his paper,
the History of the Flag of the United States, and
this paper was based on stories oral stories he'd heard
(11:16):
from his grandmother Beth Stay. Yeah, and this is an
important part is that Canby was very open about the
fact that he had no hard evidence to support the story.
You know, this was, like you mentioned, almost a century
eighteen seventy when he made the speech, and so um,
he could only rely on the stories he had heard
from his grandmother, his late grandmother. By this point, you know,
(11:37):
if he if you hear some the story from your
own grandmother, you're likely to believe it, you know, And
so you can see why it Canby wanted to publicize
this really fantastic story. But it is sad that he
had no evidence to back himself. It was all anecdotal
and the refrain we keep repeating the I do not know,
but I will try. I promise last time I'll say it. Um.
I suppose like that's a line that kept being handed
(11:59):
down and re retelling of the story. And obviously, you know,
he very much was loyal to his grandmother and wanted
to get this down for the history books, that his
grandmother had created the first flag of the United States,
and there are definitely reasons to suspect that that's true.
Like we said before, if George Ross was her late
(12:20):
husband's uncle, he might have known that Betsy could have
been struggling financially and she needed a little bit of
extra work to help out, you know, with the home,
and so he could have told George Washington and Robert Morris,
you know, let's go to backstage. She can help us
with this flag. She could really use the money. Um.
One problem with that too, though, is the fact that
if there were actually a Congressional Flag committee, you think
(12:42):
that there would be a hard there would be records
of it, because Concress is pretty good about keeping records,
and there's no evidence of that of such a committee.
One writer, Ed Cruz brought up the point that if
there were such a committee, it's really unlikely that that
George Washington would be a member of it because he
wasn't a member of Congress. And so my response to
that would be, maybe Betsy didn't quite understand how they
(13:05):
were identifying themselves. Maybe she just abolished the story. Shouldn't
really know what sort of representation they were making of themselves.
She just called them some sort of congressional committee, or
maybe she even said, you know, these men came and
family members later retold the story and said they were
a congressional committee. But you're really go for it, Betsy.
(13:26):
But um June fourteen, seventeen seventy seven, Congress passed a
law about the flag and clearly identified the flag as
having thirteen red and white stripes and thirteen stars on
a blue background, not dissimilar to the one that Betsy
was said to have helped make. Yeah, so that's one
piece of evidence we know, like we know by that
point they had started, they knew what the flag was
(13:47):
going to look like. And then even more concrete evidence
would be that on seventy seven, the Pennsylvania State Navy
Board paid Betsy for making flags. The problem here is
did they pay her for making the first original American
flag or did he pay her for recreating and making
more of the same design already? And not to play
(14:08):
devil's advocate, I think you're gonna lench me in a
few seconds for bringing all these holes in the story.
But there's no evidence to show that George Washington actually
knew or dealt with Betsy like the story says he
was supposed to be a family friend who had called
on her many times. There's no evidence in letters or
anything that Washington never mentioned her name or anything like that.
And I mean that's not to say that this is
evidence against. It's just lack of evidence. So we need
(14:31):
to keep that in mind when we're thinking about the
historical accuracy of the story. I guess. So this brings
us to part two of the Grand American Flag story,
and that is a real renaissance man and kind of
a looker, judging from his old photographs, um well not photographs,
is before photographs, office portraits, I should say. And that's
(14:51):
Francis Hopkinson, who was descended from an Englishman who was
actually friends with Benjamin Franklin, and his father died when
Frances was pretty young, and his widowed mother made it
a priority to give Frances a really good education. I
think most mothers look at their children and think, oh,
they're very gifted. I wanted to do right by them.
(15:12):
But in this case, she knew Frances was something special
and he kind of was. And I suspect he kind
of knew it too. Yeah, you think he's got an
arrogant idea, but he graduated from the College of Philadelphia
and became a lawyer. And in addition to law, he
also dabbled in science, music, poetry, painting, and he was
known for his satirical quips. One thing I like about
(15:35):
at Hopkinson is that he was an accomplished harpsichord player,
and he actually composed a lot of songs, of secular
and religious songs. And Um also a man after my
own heart. He were a lot of literary essays, and
so you can see that he was an incredibly accomplished guy.
And in addition to those attributes, he was also a
congressman of New Jersey and a signer at the Declaration
(15:55):
of Independence. Yeah, so nothing to sneeze it right there.
And in addition to that, he was a judge later
in life, and he was UM. He was a big
pusher for the Constitution and he wrote a lot of
articles that pushed for Pennsylvania to ratify it. So he
he was He was an influential UM politician as well.
So his name comes up in this debate about the
(16:16):
American flag because supposedly Um he wrote a lot of
letters requesting payment for his design of the American flag,
and he certainly designed a lot of things, and even
his personalized book plate which got circulated inside a book
that he lent to someone and got tossed around through
a few hands and eventually came back into his possession.
(16:37):
Had a book plate that had three six pointed stars,
and as you'll recall, the six pointed star was the
design that Betsy shot down and improved upon. But I
guess that became sort of a trademark of Hopkinson's, or
at least associated with his name. Yea, and among his
other like really accomplished things. We know that he designed
or helped design things such as the steal for the
(16:59):
State of New Jersey, Continental Board of Admiralty, Seal uh
seal for American Philosophical Society, for the Treasury too, yeah yeah,
and for the Great Seal of the United States. Apparently
he had hand in that and there as a side
note to that. Um. So there are suggestions that he
was a Mason and he helped, you know, incorporate these
Masonic uh um uh symbols and and clues into the
(17:22):
Great Seal of United States. But that's a whole podcast
on its own. So so he started this letter writing
campaign after he supposedly created the flag because he wanted
to be compensated for his work, and he started with
a letter to the Board of Admiralty and then one
to Congress, which actually included a bill for all of
his design. My favorite part of the story is that
when he when he wrote the original letter, he wanted
(17:44):
compensation in the form of a quarter cask of public wine, which,
like you mentioned to me earlier, candices that I think
I should get paid that for my writing my article.
I'm not going to argue with that um. And I
think that this letter, the second one, actually the one
to Congress, got lost or I got ignored in the
bureaucratic shuffle of the Board of Treasury. So he resubmitted
(18:07):
another letter, and this time he itemized all the different
charges for all of his different designs. We know for
a fact that there are journals from the Continental Congress
that gives some evidentiary support to the fact that Hopkinson
made the flag. But the Board of Treasury really stood
firm by the idea that and this is a direct quote,
he was not the only person consulted on the flags design,
(18:31):
which leads me to believe that perhaps Betsy Ross came
up the very nascent design for the flag and then
it was passed along to Hopkinson for approval and embellishment. Yeah,
or I would think actually the other way around because
of his six pointed um. Yeah. And so so maybe
it was passed to Betsy after that, and maybe that
was part of the scrip of paper that she supposedly
(18:51):
looked at and based based her a design on. Well,
in the end, we can't really be sure. And if
you look at different websites out there about the American flag,
and especially ones that are devoted to Hopkinson or devoted
to Ross, there's some very biased points of view. So
we've been walking I think a fine line in presenting information.
(19:12):
Obviously I'm swaying towards the Vetsy Ross side because I'd
like to see Um the woman get some credit where
I think it's do. But the moral of the story,
if there is one, is keep good records, you know,
keep good records. There's no reason that as young as
our nation is, that the information about who created the
first flag shouldn't be on file somewhere. Well, now we
(19:32):
have like picture phones and stuff, so we can, you know,
if George Washington or Barack Obama comes in, we can
we can stab a picture to prove it. There you go, exactly,
and not too long ago, I actually blogged about um
the story of the Star Spangled Banner, based on a
flag that was flown at Fort McHenry and Francis Scott
Key was inspired by the battle so much that he
(19:53):
wrote the star Spangled Banner And that blog post was
actually based on a reader request. And that's what we
do on the stuff you Missed in History Class blog.
We're just that kind of kind of podcast, you guys.
You write to us with questions and we will do
our best to answer them. That's right. Me and Candice
write every day we post on the stuff you missed
in History Class blog on how stuff works dot com
(20:13):
and uh, come and take a look and leave comments
and let you know, let us know what you think.
And as always, you can still reach us by email
at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com. And
we certainly hope that you will visit the website to
read this great article that Jane wrote called did Betsy
Ross really make the first American Flag? On how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
(20:38):
other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com
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