The Betsy Ross flag is an early design of the flag of the United States, popularly—but
very likely incorrectly—attributed to Betsy Ross, using the common motifs of alternating
red-and-white striped field with five-pointed stars in a blue canton. The flag was designed
during the American Revolution and features 13 stars to represent the original 13 colonies.
The distinctive feature of the Ross flag is the arrangement of the stars in a circle.
History Late 18th and early 19th century battlefield
paintings by artist John Trumbull depict a slightly different flag, with the stars arranged
in a rectangle. The flag is, nevertheless, one of the oldest
versions of U.S. flags known to exist.While it is not the oldest surviving flag artifact
in cloth form, its likeness appears on older physical relics, namely, the works of Charles
Willson Peale They depict the circular star arrangement being flown from ship masts and
many other places, and thus provide the first known historical documentation of the flag's
appearance. The seal of the U.S. Department of Veterans
Affairs uses the Betsy Ross flag to represent service to all veterans from the American
Revolution to the present day. The Betsy Ross story
Although this early American flag is commonly termed "the Betsy Ross flag," the claim that
she designed and sewed the first American flag is almost certainly false.
The National Museum of American History notes that the story first entered into American
consciousness about the time of the 1876 centennial celebrations. In 1870 Ross's grandson, William
J. Canby, presented a paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in which he claimed
that his grandmother had "made with her hands the first flag" of the United States. Canby
said he first obtained this information from his aunt Clarissa Sydney Wilson in 1857, twenty
years after Betsy Ross's death. Canby dates the historic episode based on Washington's
journey to Philadelphia, in late spring 1776, a year before Congress passed the Flag Act.
In the 2008 book The Star-Spangled Banner: The Making of an American Icon, Smithsonian
experts point out that Canby's recounting of the event appealed to Americans eager for
stories about the revolution and its heroes and heroines. Betsy Ross was promoted as a
patriotic role model for young girls and a symbol of women's contributions to American
history. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich further explored this line of enquiry in a
2007 article, "How Betsy Ross Became Famous: Oral Tradition, Nationalism, and the Invention
of History." Ross biographer Marla Miller points out, however, that even if one accepts
Canby's presentation, Betsy Ross was merely one of several flag makers in Philadelphia,
and her only contribution to the design was to change the 6-pointed stars to the easier
5-pointed stars. According to the traditional account, the
original flag was made in June 1776, when a small committee — including George Washington,
Robert Morris and relative George Ross — visited Betsy and discussed the need for a new American
flag. Betsy accepted the job to manufacture the flag, altering the committee's design
by replacing the six-pointed stars with five-pointed stars.
Betsy Ross's story was published in 1870, 34 years after her death, by her only surviving
grandson, William J. Canby, in a paper presented to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia. The paper included stories he had heard from family members throughout
the years. According to Canby's paper:
Sitting sewing in her shop one day with her girls around her, several gentlemen entered.
She recognized one of these as the uncle of her deceased husband, Col. GEORGE ROSS, a
delegate from Pennsylvania to Congress. She also knew the handsome form and features of
the dignified, yet graceful and polite Commander in Chief, who, while he was yet COLONEL WASHINGTON
had visited her shop both professionally and socially many times,. They announced themselves
as a committee of congress, and stated that they had been appointed to prepare a flag,
and asked her if she thought she could make one, to which she replied, with her usual
modesty and self reliance, that "she did not know but she could try; she had never made
one but if the pattern were shown to her she had not doubt of her ability to do it." The
committee were shown into her back parlor, the room back of the shop, and Col. Ross produced
a drawing, roughly made, of the proposed flag. It was defective to the clever eye of Mrs
Ross and unsymmetrical, and she offered suggestions which Washington and the committee readily
approved.
What all these suggestions were we cannot definitely determine, but they were of sufficient
importance to involve an alteration and re-drawing of the design, which was then and there done
by General George Washington, in pencil, in her back parlor. One of the alterations had
reference to the shape of the stars. In the drawing they were made with six points.
Mrs Ross at once said that this was wrong; the stars should be five pointed; they were
aware of that, but thought there would be some difficulty in making a five pointed star.
"Nothing easier" was her prompt reply and folding a piece of paper in the proper manner,
with one clip of her ready scissors she quickly displayed to their astonished vision the five-pointed
star; which accordingly took its place in the national standard. General Washington
was the active one in making the design, the others having little or nothing to do with
it. When it was completed, it was given to William Barrett, painter, to paint. ...
The gentleman drew out of a chest an old ship's color, which he loaned her to show her how
the sewing was done, and also the drawing painted by Barrett. Other designs had been
prepared by the committee and one or two of them were placed in the hands of other seamstresses
to be made. Betsy Ross went diligently to work upon her flag, carefully examining the
peculiar stitch in the old ship's color, which had been given her as a specimen, and recognizing,
with the eye of a good mechanic, its important characteristics, strength and elasticity.
The flag was soon finished, and Betsy returned it, the first 'Star Spangled Banner' that
ever floated upon the breeze, to her employer. It was run up to the peak of one of his ships
lying at the wharf, and received the unanimous approval of the committee and of a little
group of bystanders looking on, and the same day was carried into the State House and laid
before Congress, with a report from the committee. The next day Col. Ross called upon Betsy,
and informed her that her work had been approved and her flag adopted; and he now requested
her to turn her whole attention to the manufacture of flags, and gave her an unlimited order
for as many as she could make. ... Mrs Ross was now effectively set up in the
business of flag and color making for the government; through all her after life, which
was a long, useful and eventful one, she "never knew what it was," to use her own expression,
"to want employment," this business remaining with her and in her family for many years.
The 'Ross question'
Canby's account has been the source of some debate. It is generally regarded as being
neither proven nor disproven, and any evidence that may have once existed has been lost.
It is worth pointing out that while modern lore may enhance the details of her story,
Betsy Ross never claimed any contribution to the flag design except for the five-pointed
star, which was simply easier for her to make. The main reason historians and flag experts
do not believe that Betsy Ross designed or sewed the first American flag is a lack of
historical evidence and documentation to support her story.
No records show that the Continental Congress had a committee to design the national flag
in the spring of 1776. Although George Washington had been a member
of the Continental Congress, he had assumed the position of commander-in-chief of the
Continental Army in 1775, so it would be unlikely that he would have headed a congressional
committee in 1776. However he did serve on a committee with John Ross' uncle George Read
in 1776. There is no evidence to show that Betsy Ross
and George Washington knew each other, or that George Washington was ever in her shop.
However, George Ross and George Washington were both acquaintances of George Read in
1776, and he had frequent communication with both parties.
In letters and diaries that have surfaced, neither George Washington, Col. Ross, Robert
Morris, nor any other member of Congress mentioned anything about a national flag in 1776. Francis
Hopkinson, a treasurer of loans and a consultant to the second congressional committee, has
a naval design from 1780 which was clearly a derivative of earlier designs.
The Flag Resolution of 1777 was the first documented meeting, discussion, or debate
by Congress about a national flag. It is not unusual that Ross, an upholsterer,
would have been paid to sew flags—there was a sudden and urgent need for them, and
other Philadelphia upholsterers were also paid to sew flags in 1777 and years following.
Supporters of the Ross story make the following arguments:
Robert Morris was a business partner of John Ross, Betsy's cousin by marriage. He also
had served with George Ross the Marine Committee. George Washington was in Philadelphia in Spring
1776, where he served on a committee with John Ross' uncle George Read, and Congress
approved $50,000 for the acquisition of tents and "sundry articles" for the Continental
Army. On May 29, 1777, Betsy Ross was paid a large
sum of money from the Pennsylvania State Navy Board for making flags.
Morris was on the Marine Committee at the time the flag vote was taken as part of Marine
Committee business. Rachel Fletcher, Betsy Ross's daughter, gave
an affidavit to Betsy Ross's story. A painting which might be dated 1851 by Ellie
Wheeler, allegedly the daughter of Thomas Sully, shows Betsy Ross sewing the flag.(online
at ushistory.org) If the painting is authentic and the date correct, the story was known
nearly 20 years before Canby's presentation to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
The 'First Flag' The question "Who made the first American
flag?" can only be given speculative answers. There are at least 17 flag makers and upholsterers
who worked in Philadelphia during the time the flag was made. Margaret Manny is thought
to have made the first Continental Colors, but there is no evidence to prove she also
made the Stars and Stripes. Other flag makers of that period include Rebecca Young, Anne
King, Cornelia Bridges, and flag painter William Barrett. Hugh Stewart sold a "flag of the
United Colonies" to the Committee of Safety, and William Alliborne was one of the first
to manufacture United States ensigns. Any flag maker in Philadelphia could have sewn
the first American flag. According to Canby, there were other variations of the flag being
made at the same time Ross was sewing the design that would carry her name. If true,
there may not be one "first" flag, but many. As late as 1779, the War Board of Continental
Congress had still not settled on what the Standard of the United States should look
like. The committee sent a letter to General Washington asking his opinion, and submitting
a design that included the serpent, as well as a number corresponding to the state which
flew the flag. Francis Hopkinson is often given credit for
the Betsy Ross design, as well as other 13-star arrangements. The Second Continental Congress
passed the Flag Resolution on June 14, 1777, establishing the first congressional standard
for official United States ensigns. The shape and arrangement of the stars is not mentioned—there
were variations—but the legal description gives the Ross flag legitimacy.
"Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red
and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new
constellation."
In a 1780 letter to the Continental Board of Admiralty dealing with the Great Seal,
Hopkinson mentioned patriotic designs he created in the past few years including "the Flag
of the United States of America." He asked for compensation for his designs, but his
claim was rejected on the basis that others also contributed to the design. Ross Biographer
Marla Miller asserts that the question of Betsy Ross' involvement in the flag should
not be one of design, but of production. Even so, history researchers must accept that the
United States flag evolved, and did not have one designer. "The flag, like the Revolution
it represents, was the work of many hands." Symbolism
To add to the mystery surrounding the first American flag, experts can only guess the
reason Congress chose stripes, stars, and the colors red, white, and blue for the flag.
Historians and experts discredit the common theory that the stripes and five-pointed stars
derived from the Washington family coat of arms. While this theory adds to Washington's
legendary involvement in the development of the first flag, no evidence—other than the
obvious one that his coat of arms, like the Stars and Stripes, has stars and stripes in
it—exists to show any connection between the two. Washington was aware that "most admire
... the trappings of elevated office," but for himself claimed "To me there is nothing
in it." However, he frequently used his family coat of arms with three five-pointed red stars
and three red-and-white stripes, on which is based the flag of the District of Columbia.
The use of red and blue in flags at this time in history may derive from the relative fastness
of the dyes indigo and cochineal, providing blue and red colors respectively, as aniline
dyes were unknown. The true meaning of the symbols of the flag
may be tied to ancient history. Stars were a device representing man's desire to achieve
greatness. The common metaphor "reaching for the stars" developed from this idea. Stars
of various shapes were also important symbols in European heraldry, and stars appears in
colonial flags as early as 1676 Another possibility may come from Freemasonry. Benjamin Franklin,
John Hancock, Robert Livingston, Paul Revere, and other important people of that period
belonged to the fraternal order. Some may think they may have influenced the inclusion
of stars in the American flag, however, stars of this type, although sometimes used as a
decorative device, like pyramids, were not an important icon in Freemasonry.
Stars carried various meanings in European heraldry, differing with the shape and number
of points. Although early American flags featured stars with various numbers of points, the
five-pointed star is the defining feature of the Betsy Ross design, and became the norm
on Navy Ensigns. This may have been simply because five-pointed stars were more clearly
defined from a distance. The usage of stripes in the flag may be linked
to two pre-existing flags. A 1765 Sons of Liberty flag flown in Boston had nine red
and white stripes, and a flag used by Captain Abraham Markoe's Philadelphia Light Horse
Troop in 1775 had 13 blue and silver stripes. One or both of these flags likely influenced
the design of the American flag. The most logical explanation for the colors
of the American flag is that it was modeled after the first unofficial American flag,
the Grand Union Flag. In turn the Grand Union Flag was probably designed using the colors
of Great Britain's Union Jack. The colors of the Great Seal are the same as the colors
in the American flag. To attribute meaning to these colors, Charles Thomson, who helped
design the Great Seal, reported to Congress that "White signifies purity and innocence.
Red hardiness and valor and Blue... signifies vigilance, perseverance and justice."
There is a possibility that the circular star configuration of the Betsy Ross Flag was inspired
by the circular star configuration as a halo in a painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
called "The Immaculate Conception", dated around 1767 to 1769. It is a painting in the
PRADO collection in Spain. Francis Hopkinson had spent time with a friend named Benjamin
West, an American painter who had studied painting in Italy during the time when Giovanni
Battista was a sensation both at home and abroad.
Notes
References Leepson, Marc. Flag: An American Biography.
St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-32308-5. Mastai, Boleslaw; Mastai, Marie-Louise D'Otrange.
The Stars and the Stripes. The American Flag as Art and as History from the Birth of the
Republic to the Present'. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-47217-9.
Miller, Marla R.. Betsy Ross and the Making of America. New York: Henry Holt and Company,
LLC. ISBN 978-0-8050-8297-5. Znamierowski, Alfred. The World Encyclopedia
of Flags. Anness Publishing Limited. ISBN 1-84309-042-2. External links
Betsy Ross House Betsy Ross page at ushistory.org