99% Invisible - 494- Flag Days: Unfolding a Moment

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. At least, that's what we were taught in school. But when historians go searching…there’s no proof to be found. In this collaboration with the podcast Sidedoor, we unravel this vexillological tall tale to find out how this myth got started, and who Betsy Ross really was.Plus we talk about the real flag that inspired the song, The Star Spangled Banner.Flag Days: Unfolding a Moment 

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Long time beautiful nerds know that we have a thing for flags how they're made what they symbolize What makes a good flag and a bad flag? So with another flag day coming up today's story is about a flag that you're definitely familiar with One that we're probably long overdue covering on this show the flag of the United States that were probably long overdue covering on this show. The flag of the United States. Actually, Roman the story I'm here with today is less about the flag itself and more about

its origin story. As reporter Lizzie Peabody, she hosts a podcast for the Smithsonian that's like our spiritual cousin, it's called Side Door. Most Americans probably feel like they know the story of where our flag came from. And you might have learned this back in the fourth grade too, Roman.

The Betsy Ross story? Yeah, I think people are probably familiar with the elementary school version of the Betsy Ross story, but we're going to ruin that story and hopefully replace it with a better one. Yes, but before we ruin it, let's do a quick recap because it might have been a few, I don't know, decades since some of us were in elementary school. So, Roman, I brought this picture with me to refresh your memory. Yes, I between the drawing of Betsy Ross in Schoolhouse Rock and this painting, my entire image of what Betsy Ross is is from those two images. And in this painting, it's her sitting in this big booby dress next to an open window. There's like beautiful light pouring in. And at the bottom of the painting,

it reads, Birth of our nation's flag. Yes. And in this painting, you see George Washington and these two other guys in Wigs from the Continental Congress. And the story goes that they commissioned Betsy Ross to design a new flag for this new nation that was about to come out of the Revolutionary War

free of British rule. And these guys and wigs are kind of looking at George Washington sort of waiting to see his reaction to what Betsy Ross has in her hands. And of course what Betsy Ross has in her hands is the American flag, the first design that most of us kind of know. It's a 13 red and white stripes. And in the upper left corner, that's called a canton. That's a blue square. And it has 13 five pointed stars arranged in a circle. Yeah. And the look on Washington's face is like, this is beautiful. Like, let me get my hands on it. I want it. He is in love. Yes. Yes. He's like, give me it. So over the years, the story was repeated over and over again, that Bessie Ross, flag maker to the stars, birth mother of the United States, created the first American flag.

But the story we learned in school, it's not exactly true. Oh no! Don't worry, she's still important, just not in the way we all think. Nobody knows where the first American flag is or who actually made it. This is Jennifer Jones. She's Curator at the National Museum of American History and she keeps a watchful eye over many of America's most important historical flags but notably not the flag in the Betsy Ross painting. I have never actually seen a 13 star in a circle original flag from the revolutionary period. So we really don't know what it looks like or if it still exists.

So she doesn't know who made the first American flag. And she's never actually seen like a 13 star flag in a circle from that period at all. No. That's really something. So then where did the Betsy Ross thing come from? And she's never actually seen like a 13 star flag in a circle from that period at all. No. That's really something. So then where did the Betsy Ross thing come from? Well, if we back up, let's talk about what came before the Betsy Ross flag.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, there was a flag that was supposed to represent the colonies. It just had this problem. So we had a flag in 1776 that looked very much like a British flag. Right, and this is the grand union flag. It had 13 alternating red and white stripes just like our flag today.

But in the corner, and that canton is sort of a blue square full of white stars and had a British cross, the Union Jack. Yeah, so members of the Continental Congress looked at the grand union flag and thought, how are we supposed to use a British flag when we're fighting the British? This is not a grand union. So on June 14th, 1777, they voted to create a new American flag.

And that is why we celebrate flag day on June 14th. Yes. And that thing that they voted for, Congress needed someone to design it. The congressman who is credited with actually establishing the look for the first flag was from New Jersey and its Francis Hopkinson. Have you ever heard of this guy? No, this is a name I do not know at all. So tell me about Francis Hopkinson. So Francis Hopkinson was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and kind of a Renaissance man.

He wrote operas, he wrote songs, and he was one of the designers of the great seal of the United States. You've seen that one. It's the eagle clutching the arrows and you'll notice there's a shield, it's red, white, and blue with stars and stripes on it. This is Mark Leapson, historian and author of the book Flag, an American biography. He sent a bill to Congress, which is in the National Archives itself. And that bill says, you know, I'm charging you X amount of money for the design of the

flag of the United States. So I have a copy of that bill that Hopkins incents Congress, and I love this because it's sort of an itemized invoice of all the stuff he helped the Continental Congress with. Designed in currency, the great seal, and yes, the flag. And in the last paragraph of the bill, Hopkins en writes, For these services, I have, as yet made, no charge, nor received any recompense. I now submit it to your honours consideration whether a quarter-cask of the public wine

will not be proper and reasonable reward for these labors of fancy. It's like the equivalent of like when you help your friends move and they give you pizza and beer, he's like, this is the least you can do, guys. Okay, so I mean, he says he designed the flag, there's a bill to prove it. That seems like that's the answer to the question

who designed the flag. It seems to be, you know, Francis Hopkinson. Well, not quite. Because for all his talents, opera singer, graphic designer, Hopkinson wasn't known to so. Oh, so it's possible that he designed the flag and then George Washington asked Betsy Ross

to, you know, bring the Hopkinson, you know, design to life. It is. And ideally, there would be a paper trail laying all this history out, but there just isn't. And Mark Leapson says, there's a reason why. Nobody cared about the flag the way we do now. If you read the annals of the Continental Congress, the day that they passed the first

flag resolution, there's no mention of who introduced it. There's no mention of any vote or discussion. There's no mention of any flag committee. So it's a strong indication that it was just this thing that happened and they went on to it. And it didn't have a lot of meaning for people. It was like an administrative detail or something. It was like a footnote in the day.

Yes, that's correct, but it's not even a footnote. It's a no note. It's not notable. No one noted it at all. I know, right? And the flag was so unimportant that the Continental Congress didn't even bother to specify where to put the stars and stripes. I asked Jennifer Jones about this.

So just to get this straight, according to the first flag act of 1777, I could make a flag that had like two stars up at the top for little eyes and then all the other stars arranged in a little smiley face and that would be an American flag. Correct. There was no set determination of any arrangement of the stars or the stripes. Wow, so people could play really fast and loose with the Hopkins design. Yeah, really fast and really loose, and that's not even the half of it, because the original plan for the flag was to add a star and stripe every time a state joined the union. Well, that would have been a mess. We had a lot of states in the 1800s.

It would have been a very big flag or you know, very narrow stripes. Yeah, it's a lot of seems to so. So yeah, flags would basically be made and almost immediately outdated. So people just could not keep up. So in 1818, Congress is like, all right, let's go back to the original 13 stripes

and then we can just put one star for each state every year on the 4th of July. Well, just like, it's like a system update, you know? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So that's what they did. And really not much else changed with the flag until 1861. There are very few things in history

that change almost immediately, but that's what happened with the flag. In April 1861, a rebel army captured Fort Sumter and raised a Confederate flag starting the Civil War. Almost overnight, when the war started in the North, you saw flags in front of people's houses, schools, churches, women wore little flags in their hats, the Pelpins, they put them on wagons.

And this is the time in American history where what historians call the cult of the flag started. For decades leading up to the war, the flag was basically used as an instrument of the military. It was a way to command troops on the field and command ships at sea. But during the Civil War, the flag became a symbol for the Union,

something for Northerners to rally around. So it during the Civil War, the flag became a symbol for the Union, something for Northerners to rally around. So it was during this time that the flag went from being mostly a tool to an icon. And coincidentally, this is also the time when the legend of Betsy Ross first pops up. America did not know the name Betsy Ross until 1870, almost a hundred years after the fact.

And by this time, Betsy Ross was long dead, but her grandson, William Canby, he was alive and well, and he had grown up being told that his grandmother sowed the first American flag. So in 1870, he gave a speech to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. This is President and Gentlemen of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, a number of... This is a long speech that just kind of goes on. These facts being laid before the Executive Council of this Society... And on...

As the cellist commander at this time, no fake climmerings of independence could he not... And on. The leaders of the, were men of intelligence and experience in military matters. But then, it can be drops this bomb. He tells the crowd that the Continental Congress actually adopted the American flag during a secret session in early 1776.

And then he reveals who made that flag that George Washington presented during that meeting. Elizabeth Betsy Ross, this is the lady, the one to whom belongs the honor of having made with her own hands the first flag. And almost overnight, Betsy Ross became a celebrity. The story really stuck with people. So how did this very long, reportedly kind of boring speech? Like, like capture the

imagination enough to put Betsy Ross on a map like a hundred years after the fact. Well, Camby had impeccable timing. The country was healing after a brutal civil war and having a single flag was a powerful symbol. And people wanted to celebrate and have a story to tell about our country. At the same time, the women's suffrage movement was gaining momentum. So, with Betsy Ross' story, Americans didn't just have founding fathers to celebrate, they had a founding mother, too. But for historians like Mark Liebsen, can be story is a little flimsy. The Betsy Ross story is based 100% on family stories.

And if family, you know, when historians judge the merits of historical evidence, you know what's on the bottom? Oh, I bet family stories are the bottom. Yeah. It is my family, that's for sure. Yes, so let's take a closer look at the family story William can be told the Pennsylvania Historical Society in 1870. Where did he get that from? He got the story from Betsy's daughter Clarissa.

This is Marla Miller, she's the author of Betsy Ross and the Making of America. She allegedly sits her nephew down while he says, I and says, I want you to take this down. This story is important. And she tells Will how his grandmother created the first flag. And Canvey's like, that is a great story, but what do people don't believe us? And so he asked all of these relatives to go to an attorney, go to a notary, and tell the story as you remember hearing it.

And then that became sort of the archival basis for the story as it was in 1870. Oh, I see. So instead of the story getting distorted generation over generation, like a game of telephone, can be one to make sure at least the one in 1870 was locked and frozen in time, and that he had receipts. Like, he got him notarized and everything. Yeah, like, he left a voicemail. I mean, I guess that a bunch of people

writing it down, getting it notarized, does add some credibility that it's more than just an old family story. Yeah, I think it was kind of the best he could do at that point. And so, the Ross family story, it is a big hit. And it sort of starts to take on a life of its own. When I do talks, I, when I get to Betsy Ross,

I say, you know, I know what you're thinking, right? They're thinking of that picture. You know, Betsy Ross sitting in her parlor on Arch Street. And this is the painting that we were talking about earlier. Yes. That picture is completely made up. Of course, it was painted in 1893, 115 years after the fact. Yeah.

The painting, the birth of our nation's flag, was done by this guy named Charles Weisgerber, and it is entirely a product of his imagination. It was part of Weisgerber's promotion of the Betsy Ross myth and not coincidentally, the Betsy Ross house, which he owned, and was his tourist attraction. Vice-Curber was such a Betsy Ross superfan that he actually bought what he thought was the house she grew up in, although the neighborhoods in Philadelphia have changed so much. It's hard to say if it actually was. Yeah, okay.

I don't want to say it was a Huckster, but he was a real good promoter, okay? I mean, Huckster implies that he wasn't genuine, but he even went to Vincenuine. Yeah, I mean, he did spend the rest of his life promoting Vetzy Ross' legacy. He even named his son, Vexel Domus, which you know what that's Latin for, right? They just kid flag house. Yes. Yes, he did. He's committed to the bit. All right. They just kid flag house. Yes. Yes. Oh. Yes, he did. He's committed to the bit.

Yeah. He even dressed Vexel up in an uncle's Samsung suit and paraded him around the Betsy Ross house presiding patriotic quotes for visitors. Oh, I love everything about what you just said. It was like my only problem with it is I wasn't there to see it. Oh. what you just said. My only problem with it is I wasn't there to see it.

Yeah, so thanks in part to Weiss Gerber, Betsy Ross' story was permanently woven into the American fabric. And yes, historians have tried to correct the record ever since, but the myth persists. So if we dispense with the myth, who actually was Betsy Ross? Alright, let's take it back to the beginning. Betsy Ross was born Elizabeth Griscombe, and she was one of 18 children. Not all survived to adulthood as is common in that time and place, but she was in the middle of a big family, so she had, you know,

these several older sisters. And at the age of 21, she rebelled against her strict quaker upbringing by marrying John Ross, who was not a quaker, and this sort of put her on the outs with her family. So she and John ran off to the big city, Philadelphia, and they opened up in a poultry shop, and things were really good for a couple of years until John died. So there she is, it's January of 76, and she's a young widow. And at that time, in the course of the revolution, Philadelphia is fearful that the British Navy is going to appear.

They're worried they're going to be invaded. And so there is a mad scramble to create what's essentially the first navy. And what does the navy need besides ships? Well, they need flags. Right. And anyone who could push a needle through a piece of fabric was competing for government contracts to sow these flags. It didn't matter if you are dressmaker, a saddler, and a polsterer, the government was desperate for flags. And Betsy Ross, no longer had her family or a husband to help supporter, she was desperate too. Betsy Ross saw that happening in need of an income, newly widowed, and wanted to get

on the rolodex for those contracts. And so I always say like, it's Betsy Ross government contractor is what we need to be thinking. Okay, so if this was like a game of clue and we've got like Betsy Ross government contractor in Philadelphia in 1776. So all this stuff is there for her to be the person who sowed the first flag. But is there any other evidence that any part of the story we're heard in school is true? Well, it's all pretty circumstantial. Marlamiller says historical records put George Washington in Philadelphia the month this was all said to take place. So that checks out.

And actually one of the men who allegedly joined the visit to Betsy Ross' shop is George Ross, Betsy Ross' uncle, who actually knew Washington. So the logic goes, he could have made the introduction. But Marlamiller says the story gets a key detail about him wrong. George Ross was not a member of Congress in the spring of 76. He's elected later that year. I believe at the end of the summer.

And so he would not have been on a congressional committee charged with acquiring a new flag. Huh. Yeah, and that's not the only problem with the story. The other powdered wig who supposedly joined Washington on that trip to Betsy Ross' shop, acquiring a new flag. Huh. Yeah, and that's not the only problem with the story. The other powdered wig who supposedly joined Washington on that trip to Betsy Ross' shop, he was famously opposed to American independence.

So that doesn't make sense. Okay, so Marlem Miller doesn't seem to think that there's much truth to this whole scene at the Betsy Ross shop. No, lots of it does not pass the smell test, but she did say that there is one thing that rings true to her. And you'll like this Roman because it has to do with design. Excellent, okay, design.

Hit me. Okay, so remember how we said Frances Hopkinson designed the first flag? Yes, I could never forget Frances Hopkinson. Well, many historians think that the first flag Hopkinson designed for the US had six pointed stars on it. And that would be consistent with heraldry design at the time and the other things that he designed for the revolution. So Marla Miller thinks it's Hopkinson's six-pointed star design that George Washington ultimately showed Betsy Ross. But Betsy, being a skilled seamstress, she's like, well, if you're gonna need a lot of these flags,

let me show you a little shortcut. She pulls out, we don't know if it's fabric, we don't know if it's paper, but she folds out a little scrap, just so, folds it up just so, and with one snip of the scissors, out pops this five-pointed star. Miller says this, the five-pointed star,

is likely Betsy Ross' contribution to the American flag. That story is not her saying I made the first flag. What she was proud of, and this just resonates with everything we know about the period, is that the father of our country, you know, the nation's biggest celebrity in that period, came into her shop and she taught him something. That resonates for me.

That's the kind of moment a woman like her would remember forever. This is really interesting because in Heraldry, the five-pointing star is pretty recent. It showed up here and there, but its prominence on the US flag is said to have really caused it to take off on many other flags that followed. Yeah, so Betsy Ross could have been behind that shift.

And there is another clue Miller uncovered while researching her book to support the star version of the story. It's still something from a family member, but from a different perspective. One of Betsy's extended family members is an illustrator named Joseph Boggs' Beale. He was very important to the 19th century as an artist. Miller came across one of Boggs' Beale's diaries, and while she's leaving through it, she finds an entry from February 1857. Boggs' Beale is over at Cloris's house

for a big family gathering. All the players are there. And in the diary, although he's an artist, there are no other doodles. At the bottom of this page is a five-pointed star. And I looked at that and it gave me a chill and it's hard not to think. He came home from that and wrote up, you know, his evening, and that he heard a story that

night about a five-pointed star. So the family stories could have some truth, or they could be just that, stories. But Marlemiller says it doesn't really matter. She thinks this is the problem with being fixated on the first. We really miss the rest of the Betsy Ross story. I mean, she was a woman in her early 20s when that flag moment, whatever it was, unfolded. And then she just goes on to this long and interesting career. She marries a second time, she's widowed a second time, she survives the occupation of Philadelphia in 1777.

Her sons and nephews go on to be ship captains, she is paying attention to global events, she is writing the Navy Department to remind them like I'm still in business, do you need anything? Like her world is so big. And that's why that the parlor images really get under my skin because her horizons were broad they weren't confined to that parlor and they certainly weren't confined 1976. When we come back, a flag that we know exists and we know who made it to after this. So I'm back with Lizzie Peabody and you have another story for us that might undermine our elementary school education that we had in the 80s, is that right? You know me undermining everyone's elementary school education.

One story at a time. Excellent. Yeah, so I do have another story and this one I sort of found by accident while reporting the piece on the Betsy Ross flag So while reporting this piece I went to the National Museum of American History Because that seemed like the place to go to find the Betsy Ross flag Absolutely, that's where I'd look and since you have proximity. That's where I would imagine you would look Right, but you know as we know, I went over there to chat with Curator Jennifer Jones,

and she could not show me the flag. Right, because it does not exist. Yes, and it's very hard to show somebody something that doesn't exist. But she did have a flag that she could show me, and this one does exist, and it is arguably more famous than the so-called Betsy Ross flag.

So this is the Star Spangled Banner. This is the Star Spangled Banner, that's correct. So there's only one Star Spangled Banner. That's right. And it's this flag. Correct. So a lot of people probably hear Star Spangled Banner and immediately think, oh, the national anthem.

Right. But the Star Spangled Banner isn't as strong. It's like a real tangible flag from the War of 1812 that you can actually go see. Yes, you can, and I did. Have you ever been to see it at the Smithsonian, Roman? I have not. I've been to lots of parts of the Smithsonian, like actually quite a while ago at this point, but I don't remember seeing that specifically now. So it's a 15-star, 15-stripe flag, and it's right in what Jennifer Jones calls the heart of the museum. So when you go in the main entrance, you sort of turn off the main drag down this dark hallway,

and it opens out into this movie theater-like room. And in front of you is the flag laid out behind glass in this sealed chamber which protects it from breaking down. It's about 14% oxygen in there. Oh wow. We breathe about 22% oxygen. And so when we go in there, two people have to go in. Two people have to go in in case one person passes out for lack of oxygen. That's right.

Oh my gosh. You get a big headache when you walk in there. Conservation is dangerous work. I guess that's why no idea. I was like, how about no oxygen? Gosh, you get a big headache when you walk in there. Conservation is dangerous work. I guess that's why no idea. I was like, how about no oxygen? If it really comes to a problem, but now I see why, okay. Yes, I was pretty shocked too.

So here's the thing that I wanted to get to Roman. The star-spangled banner, this flag that we do have, we actually do know who made it. Oh, good. Well, that's a relief. We know 100% do know who made it. Oh, good. Well, that's a relief. We know 100% for sure who made the star Spangled Banner. The bill of sale for that is in the National Flaghouse and Museum in Baltimore. It was made by a woman named Mary Pickerskill. You

didn't learn about Mary Pickerskill in fourth grade. No. Why? She didn't have a Charles Weiss Gerber, right? She didn't have the publicity machine going. Ha, ha, ha. Ha. So tell me more about Mary Pickerskill. OK, so I love this because in a strange way, Mary Pickerskill's story runs parallel with Betsy Rosses. Mary Pickerswell comes from a family of flag makers.

Her mom, Rebecca Young, was known to sew flags during the revolution for George Washington's Continental Army. And in fact, Young lived in Philadelphia at the same time as Betsy Ross, so they were contemporaries in might have known each other. So is there any thought that Rebecca Young actually, sewed the Betsy Ross flag?

We're reopening the can of worms. Yeah, I know. So the family actually claims, and here we go into family stories again, that young sewed the first grand union flag that Washington flew. So there's a school thought that says, hey, there's some circumstantial evidence to say Rebecca, young might have had something to do with the Betsy Ross flag too. We really don't know. But we do know a lot about her daughter, Mary Pickers' Gill,

who, like Betsy Ross, was widowed at a young age and also took up flag making to support her family. And after the death of her husband in 1805, Mary and her mom moved to Baltimore. And a few years later, the war of 1812's underway, and we're fighting the British again. And it's in the summer of 1813 that Pickersgill, who is 37 years old at the time, is asked by the leaders of Fort McHenry, the Fort in Baltimore, to make a very large flag. Specifically, I think he said a flag that was, quote,

so large that the British will have no trouble seeing it from a distance. You want it like an in your face flag, like, like a car dealership on Memorial Day, style flag. Exactly. So that's why they made it 30 feet by 42 feet. And it was actually so big, they had to move their sewing operations to a nearby brewery because the flag was larger than the footprint of their house. So it took Mary Picker's girl six weeks of around the clock sewing to finish the flag, but she did not do it alone. She had the help of her mother, her daughter, two nieces,

and an indentured servant named Grace Wisher. And there's actually a painting of the moment this flag was being sewn, Also done well after the fact. Yeah. Okay, so I see again another woman in a poofy dress sitting down. This time she is holding a flag of considerable size. Like the star is as big as her torso, for example. And up front, in the foreground, it's actually kind of hard to make out. There's a dashed line of the sort of missing person, the indentured servant that you mentioned. Yeah, it looks like she's holding a lantern or something. Yeah, yeah.

So by the time the flag was finished, it weighed about 50 pounds, and it was hoisted up the flag pole for all to see. And it's this image of a beautiful flag flying high, the morning after battle of Baltimore that inspires Francis Conquay, right? Right. To write the song we all know, the starsfangled banner. Well, I mean, this is a really striking image of her sewing that flag. It's too bad that she didn't have a white scurber to promote it the same way that Betsy Ross story was promoted, but you can be the white scurber of this story, as opposed. Where you can. OK.

Mary Pickersdale has a Roman Mars. She doesn't need a white scurber. That's right. Well, thank you so much for telling the story. And thanks for all the work you do on the Sidedoor podcast. I really enjoy it. Well, thanks so much. It's been such a pleasure sharing this story with you.

99% Invisible was produced and edited this week by Lizzie Peabody, James Morrison, and Jason De Leon. Mixed in tech production by Martin Gonzales, music by our director of sound, Swan Rial. Fact checker, Sona Avakin. Delaney Hall is the executive producer, Kurt Coleset is the digital director. Special welcome this week to our intern, Sarah Baker. The rest of the team includes Emmett Fitzgerald, Vivian Leigh, Joe Rosenberg, Chris Baroubaix, Christopher Johnson, Washmadan, Sophia Klatsker, and me Roman Mars.

Special thanks to the team at Sintor and Kananon, Jess Saudec, Sharon Bryant, Lyra Koch and Tamionio. If you want to hear more stories that span history, art, science and culture, you can find Scyndor by visiting the Smithsonian site at SI.edu or wherever you're listening to this podcast. 99% invisible is part of the Stitcher and Sirius XM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building. And beautiful. Uptown, Oakland, California. You can find the show and join discussions about the show on Facebook. You can tweet me at Roman Mars and the show at 99PI org, or on Instagram and read it

too. You can find links to other Stitcher shows I love, as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI.org. Okay, my apologies for this. Oh, say can you stature? From serious sex sound? Say can you stature? Browse here, yes, exam.