American History Hit - The Birth of the American Flag

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

13 equal horizontal stripes in red and white, with a navy blue square in the top left bearing 50 small white five pointed stars. It's recognisable the world over as the flag of the United States of America.But how did this become the American flag? When did it develop its own 'cult'? And does Betsy Ross have anything at all to do with this story?Don is joined by Marc Leepson, author of Flag: An American Biography.For more History Hit content, follow our newsletters here.If you’d like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts, and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. It's 8 a.m. in homeroom. Last-minute schoolwork, hurriedly scribbled upon before the teacher walks in, is nudged into textbooks. Cell phones are stashed, hair straightened, past notes are crumpled. Another school day in America is about to commence.

Without question, you stand collectively with your classmates. Place your right hand onto your heart and face the American flag in the corner of the room, reciting words you've spoken every morning in school since kindergarten. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It's automatic, its reflex, these patriotic words. They begin the day as they always have, but for several newly arrived exchange students who remain politely seated, it's anything but. Elsewhere in the world, such utter reverence for a nation's flag is,

unusual. The daily pledge is a purely American ritual, one that literally speaks to our uncommon bond with our flag and all that it represents, while at the same time calling into fair question how and why that attachment has been formed. Hello everyone. Don Wildman here for American History Hit. Glad to have you. Old Glory, the grand old flag, the star-spangled banner. The Stars and Stripes, well, some version of it anyway, has been the United States' standards since the early days of the revolution back in 1777. It was one of the first steps of national sovereignty we took as a nation, creating our own flag. But who conceived of the first one and how?

What were the influences on the design? Who stitched up the original one? And where did it fly? For most of us, there are many persistent questions about the past history of our national emblem. And given current political climates in our nation, the deep divide, the polarization, we hear so much about, we figured it would be a refreshingly unifying notion to find some answers on the one thing that's common to us all, the American flag. Historian and author, Mark Leapson, is an expert on the subject, wrote the book, Flag,

an American biography. Greetings, Mark, let's unfurl the wisdom. Well, thanks, Don. I'll do my best. How's that? That's good. Mark, I'm a big fan of the flag. In my middle years, I've taken to putting it out every unrainy morning and then taking it down at night. It's become a ritual for me. It makes me feel like a patriotic second grader doing the Pledge of Allegiance. We Americans have a unique bond to our flag, don't we? Yeah, that's true. You know, when I was doing the research for this book, I had it in my head that very thing, that Americans have a unique feeling for our national emblem for our flag. But of course, you know, you can't write a book about something you think about.

So I did my research, you know, I read as widely as I could. I spoke to flag experts. And I did come to realize that it's exactly true what you just said. There's something unique about Americans and how we feel about our flag. And I found six things that we Americans have. Some of them, there may be one or two, or a version of some around the world and other countries, but no one has anything like the Pledge of Allegiance, right? I mean, since 1892, American schoolchildren have pledged allegiance to the flag. It was originally started as a school children's celebration marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage, 1492, 1892. But since then, it spread everywhere, as everybody probably knows, you know, the legal system, I mean, every legislative body from the board of supervisors to Congress pledges beforehand, patriotic groups, before meetings, and so on. I couldn't find another country or maybe one that had something kind of like that, but nothing like that that's been ingrained in there. We have the Flag Day holiday, right, June 14th, marking the Continental Congress's adaptation of the first flag resolution

on June 14th, 1777. I found a couple of countries that honor their flag here or there, but not like we're not that Flag Day is a giant holiday like Thanksgiving or whatever, but every president since Woodrow Wilson during World War I has proclaimed Flag Day June 14th. Then, of course, our national anthem is an ode to our flag, the star spangled banner. Maybe there's a word flag appears in the Marseilles or something like that, but nothing like an ode to the flag. And do you know we have a national march of the United States by congressional resolution? Can you guess what it is?

The Stars and Stripes Forever by John Phillips Suza, right? And then there's flag groups, non-profit flag groups, right? So beginning in the late 19th century in the early 20th century, there were a handful of groups that sprung up to promote the proper use of the flag. And we still have a couple today. The American Flag Foundation is one of them. No other country, I don't believe, ever has these nonprofit groups that work on the flag issue. And finally, the U.S. flag code, right? So the flag code has been part of the federal code since 1942. You know what it is. It's a series of guidelines. It's not laws. I mean, there were flag protection laws, but we can talk about

later, but they're all off the books. But the flag code is very much on the books, you know, the proper way to display the flag. If you look in the federal code, anybody can look online and see it. It's a long series of guidelines. I did find one or two other country. I think Ireland, they have a little pamphlet about the proper way to fly the flag. But long story short, these six things that are so unique in the United States, just give a hint about how Americans have this unique feeling for a flag. And when I started doing the research for the I had this idea that we had this unique feeling. So I went online and I went on a couple of talk lists. And I put that question out there, international sociology talk lists and a couple others. And I asked that

question, you know, I'm writing this book about the American flag. I think Americans have this unique feeling about the flag. I like to hear from people around the world. And I did. I heard from an awful lot of people, people from other countries who had lived here, who had visited here. And you know what? Almost all of them said the same thing. You know, we like our flag okay. And, and, you know, And, you know, fill in the blank of the country, Bulgaria, Bolivia, you know, South Africa. But nothing like you Americans. We come here. We see the flag everywhere.

And so that and all of the historical evidence I found led me to believe that you're correct. We do have this unique feeling about our flag in this country. Okay. So school me up on the basics. 13 red and white stripes. 50 stars on a blue field. What does it mean the basic designs and how did it come to pass? The early flag was more of an evolved symbol, wasn't it?

Yeah, you know, here's the thing, especially considering this unique feeling Americans have about their flag, the early history of the flag, including exactly what you just asked, is filled with myth and misinformation. This goes back to the point that back then, you know, we're talking about the 18th century, into the middle of the 19th century, Americans didn't have these extreme feelings about the flag that we did. do now. It was almost unheard of for individual Americans to fly the flag back in those days. Basically, the flag was used by the government, mostly by the military, mostly by the Navy, as a signaling and communications device. So therefore, the early history of the flag, people just didn't care that much. You know, if you read the annals of the Continental Congress on June 14th, 1777, when they passed that initial flag resolution, the flag of the United States shall be 13 stars, 13 stripes, etc. They're doing something, right? They're doing, they're acting on some naval measure or something.

This resolution comes up. It's passed. There's no indication that there was any debate about it, and they went on to something else. So we don't have really good answers as to those basic questions. Where do the stars come from? Where did the stripes come from? Where did the colors come from? and who designed the American flag or who made the first one. We celebrate Flag Day, well, some of us do anyway, on June 14th every year, as you say. It's a holiday because this was the day in 1777 when the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia passed a resolution that read this. Resolved that the flag of the 13 United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white,

that the Union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a nation. But part of the controversy of the flag is that it looks quite similar in some ways to the Union Jack, the flag of our enemy, of course, at the time, but also it looks like the East India Company that was here before them.

I mean, that was the original British settlement. How was it that it was so derivative of other symbols before it? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, people think that they know the meaning of this red, white, and blue, right? The red stands for blood that was spilled, was the purity and so on. Well, that's nothing official. That's never been written down ever

anywhere. It's something that came up in the 60s. So the answer is we really don't know. We have an idea who designed the American flag, right? And it was a man named Francis Hopkinson, who was a kind of a renaissance man in Revolutionary War America. He was a lawyer. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was a member of the Continental Congress. He was also a heraldist, who was one of the designers of the great seal of the United States and designed the seal of the state of New Jersey and the U.S. Navy. And the reason that historians believe that Huffington designed the flag is because he sent a bill to Congress that listed nine or ten or eleven things that he did. And one of them was the phrase design of the flag of the United States.

And because there are no flags, original flags from back then, we don't know. All we know is what you just read from the flag resolution, 13 stars and 13 stripes. There was nothing about the arrangement of the stars. There was nothing about the size of the stars. So early flags had five-pointed, six-pointed, seven-pointed, even eight points. So we think since Hopkinson was one of the designers of the great seal of the United States, and if you can picture that, it's the one with the eagle clutching two arrows. And in the back, and his design, which was not the final design, it did have the shield behind the eagle with 13 white stars. So we think that's where Hopkinson got the idea from for the Hopkinson flag, which, again,

we don't have any from that time period. Nor do we have the so-called Betsy Ross flag with the 13 stars in a circle. The earliest ones we have are from the early 1800s. So it just remains a mystery. You know, you're right about the colors. Yes, the red, white, and blue are also on the Union. And in fact, the first flag of the United States, which is called the Continental Colors, it was the flag that George Washington raised on January 1st, 1776 when he started the Continental

Army up there in Massachusetts. It had 13 stripes red and white, but in the Canton, right, the Canton, where the stars are, it had the Union Jack. That's called the Continental Color is sometimes called the Grand Union flag. Now, that flag was flown at the very very big. very beginning of the Revolutionary War, but then there's a letter that's in the National Archives from George Washington saying, well, I think it's not a great idea to fly a flag with the flag of our enemy in it, right? So even though that was the official flag of the Revolutionary War,

and it flew on some ships, but really that war was fought under, don't forget, the Continental Army was made up of state militias, right? So they all had their own flags. Think of the Bennington flag, right, with the number 76 spelled out in stars. It had 13 stars and 13 stripes. So much about the flag is about unifying the disparate elements of the United States, even today. But certainly back in the day when these original colonies had become states and they were very separate, I mean, we're talking about don't tread on me and join or die days. The flag becomes that unifying element.

But at first, you have all these different militias joining up and creating a, army, they come with their own flags. It's sort of chaotic in terms of the symbolism here. You're 100% right. On top of that, though, yes, it was a unifying thing in that the Continental Congress passed that resolution, but people didn't feel the same way about the flag that we do now. Why did that change? I mean, how did that start to move towards a singularity? Well, as is not often the case in history, it changed almost overnight. And it changed, You know, when the American flag came down at Fort Sumter, at the start of the Civil War, it went up in the north. So before the war, almost unheard of for individuals to fly the flag.

Soon after word got around in the north, all of a sudden, and you know this from reading newspaper articles, from reading journals, from diaries, letters, contemporary, solid, primary source evidence, the flag went up everywhere. All of a sudden, people are putting it in front of their houses, businesses, women were wearing little flag rosettes on their hat. They displayed flags. You know, I like to say they displayed flags on pickup trucks for the first time. No, wait, that was the Civil War era. But the point being, they put them on wagons, places where you never saw them before. And then that is the beginning of what historians call the cult of the flag,

this almost religious-like feeling that Americans have for our Star-Spangled Banner, for the American flag. And the cult of the flag after the Civil War spread nationwide in the last three decades of the 19th century. This is when we had the Pledge of Allegiance, the first inklings for a Flag Day holiday. This is when we had the Betsy Ross myth, 1870, it was when Americans first learned the name of Betsy Ross. We had the beginnings of the first flag protection laws. And this was the rise. Some people called that era like the 1870. 1980s and 1890s, the age of fraternity. So there are a lot of fraternal organizations, including descendants organizations. This is when the daughters of the American Revolution started

and the sons of the American Revolution and lots of other descendants. All of which grasped onto the flag as their symbol and still do today. Wow. Interesting. It's so much portrait of America, really, in terms of its symbolism. From the continental era right to the Civil War is one kind of country, very much based on the old school thinking of how all this place is going to run. The civil war crisis really drives this towards a more federally guided nation and therefore the unity of the flag and then we have the rest of time. And it kind of breaks down on that line. To your point, and it's a good one, during the Spanish-American war, right, 1898, it was the first time that, you know, Southerners and northerners fought together

since this horrible civil war 30 or 40 years ago. And it was talking about. It's a lot of, And it was talked about that they flew under the American flag. So I think your point is very well taken on that. It's in the paintings. It's in the stories as being flown, even when it wasn't there. I mean, Washington crossing the Delaware, for one of the most famous images, the origins of the flag allow for its liberal use in such ways. It's almost like how the flag was invented. People kind of made it up as it went along until finally it was sort of institutionalized.

but it's always had this sort of flexibility to it, an almost plastic nature, that we could use it the way we needed to use it. And it was okay. I'll be right back after this short break. Meantime, if you'd like this to cover anything specifically, if you have any ideas of subject matter we should be looking at, send us an email at a-h-h-h-h-historyhit.com. We'd love to hear from you.

From biblical fame to its fabled great walls, Babylon was home to kings, conquerors, and wonders of the ancient world. But what do we actually know about this legendary city? And how much is still shrouded in mystery? Join me, Tristan Hughes, every Sunday throughout May on the ancients, as we delve into the story of Babylon. We'll be covering topics varying from the King Nebuchadnezzar II

and how he forged a massive Babylonian empire. We'll be exploring the mystery of the hanging gardens of Babylon. looking at world-renowned objects such as the Cyrus cylinder, and also looking at Babylon in the aftermath of one of the most well-known conquerors in the whole of history. Babylon, after Alexander the Great. That's all to come this May on the ancients every Sunday. So, okay, let's talk about Betsy Ross. Let's put this thing in high relief.

A surprisingly elaborate myth. She was a very real woman with an amazing life, thrice, widowed, in fact, lived deep into the 1800s, and she had an upholstery business. I never knew this before this interview. I was surprised from your book that while it's pretty established that George Washington didn't visit her shop and look glowingly down upon her as she sewed the commissioned flag, there is an argument for her stitching some version of the first flag, right? Yeah. Look, a lot of historians, including myself, have looked into the Betsy Ross myth. And they found out that there's something like 11 or 12 flag makers in Philadelphia,

at the time, and you're right, she and her first husband, Ross, were upholsters, and they kind of did these, they called them ensigns or emblems on the side, including flags. So she was active in Philadelphia at the time. But Americans didn't know the name Betsy Ross until 1870. That's 100 years after the fact. And in fact, you know, she was known as Elizabeth Claypool after her third husband at the time. In 1870, the occasion, the occasion was, you know, she was known as Elizabeth Claypool, the occasion was one of her grandsons held a press conference at the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia. And he announced that his grandmother, you know, not only designed the first American flag, but made the first American flag. And his evidence were affidavits.

She had died, but he had affidavits from her sisters, his great aunts. And that's the only evidence that we've had all these years. And, you know, if historians rank, you know, the most accurate historical information, what's on the bottom. Family stories. They just have a way of morphing over the years. Sure, this woman named Betsy Ross, who really wasn't named Betsy Ross at the time, but she did make a flag in Philadelphia in 1777. And, you know, over the years, it morphs into she made the first flag and helped design the flag. And as you said, the story is that the flag committee of the Continental Congress visited her at her house in Arch Street in Philadelphia. and if there was a flag committee of the Continental Congress, there's no record of it.

And plus, George Washington had a lot on his plate in the spring of 1777 to be concerned about this design. And, you know, if you go to the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia on Arch Street, which, by the way, may not be the house where Betsy Ross lived because the streets were renumbered and they never owned, they rented, so it's a little unclear, but that's okay. So if you go there, the signage and the pamphlets they give you speak of the family story or the legend. And then you go upstairs and there's a woman interpreter dressed as Betsy Ross showing how she snipped the five-star flag with one snip of the scissors, which is totally made up. So you're right, it's ingrained. Like you said, Washington Crossing to Delaware, that was painted in the 1850s, you know, 50 years after.

I mean, there's a book that's been written about everything that's wrong with that painting. aside from the fact that Lieutenant James Monroe has the Betsy Ross flag, you know, over his shoulder. And also, you know, when I do talks for the book and we get to Betsy Ross, I said, I know what you're thinking. I know what you're picturing in your mind. You're seeing Betsy Ross sitting in the parlor

of her house at Arch Street with the flag on her lap and the flag committee looking over her shoulder, right? It's ingrained in us, all of us. And, you know, it could be true, but there is not a shred of solid historical evidence that it's true. It seems like it's rich subject matter because it seems like this country, and maybe all countries, counted on mythology to build the nation. I mean, that used to be the way it was done. It's sort of a modern concept to bring true history to bear on everything. And this is how

the flag has been used over time as a sort of a symbol of myth. It's 1812 when it really gets really in the public conscience as a thing. The Star-Spangled Banner. In a way, the flag is this record of wars in this country, isn't it? Yeah. You know, I taught U.S. history at community college for eight years, and it dawned on me as I was, and this was, you know, years after I wrote the book, it kind of dawned on me that you can almost tell the history of the American flag through America's wars. It was born during the Revolutionary War. The Star-Spangled Banner happened during the War of 1812. You know, the Mexican War in 1840 was the first war that we officially fought under the Stars and Stripes.

It was the first time the military had officially adopted the Red, you know, the Stars and Stripes, the Star Spangled Banner. Of course, we talked about the Civil War earlier with this 180-degree turn and how Americans felt about the flag. And then I mentioned also the Spanish-American War, the first time former enemies fought side by side. And then during World War I and World War II, look, countries always rally around their national symbols when there's a war, right? And what is the one American national symbol, right, the flag? And in fact, there was a popular song during the Civil War, rally around the flag boys. So around the turn of the 20th century, we saw the beginning of state flag protection laws. At that time, they weren't aimed at flag burners because there weren't any.

but they were reamed at the rampant commercial use of the image of the flag. That's what they were. They had them in nearly every state. It had to do with advances in color printing and mass production during the Industrial Revolution. So by the early 20th century, there were flag protection laws in, I think every state but two. Anyway, during the war, a bunch of the states amped up their flag protection laws because of this surge of patriotism. It has a lot of anti-German feeling. and people were actually prosecuted for not flying the flag

or not saluting the flag. And some people went to jail and there was violence too. So the flag ticks on strong meanings during wars. And what did World War II give us as far as the flag is concerned? How about the most reproduced photograph of the 20th century, the flag raising at Iwo Jima? Right. I mean, that photograph was taken by a pool photographer.

He was on Iwo Jima on Mount Surabachi, if it was horrible, horrible, a long bloody battle when the Marines found a flag and raised it. And he took the picture with his big camera, took a series of pictures.

Of course, he couldn't look in his camera to see the image, right? So he sent the undeveloped film back on a plane. When newspaper editors around the country saw it, it was on the front page

of virtually every newspaper the next day. It was so popular. Newspapers sold out. Some printed the photograph just in a special edition on the entire front page. So it's an icon of American culture and history.

And like I said, the most reproduced photograph of the 20th century. It also led to the Marine Corps Memorial in Washington, D.C., aka the Iwo Jima Memorial. The history of the flag is really so much a statement of how long this country has really been going, right? I mean, we take it for granted as a modern symbol, but its reality in the life of this country is so misunderstood. the Star-Spangled Banner, when that poem is written by Francis Scott Key, the words of the poem aren't made into a song until much later. That becomes the national anthem later on, 1931, I think. The same is kind of true of how the flag develops over time.

It's really the 20th century when things really get official about counting the states by virtue of the stars and so forth. It becomes much more institutionalized. Yeah, until recently, people believe Key was writing a poem. but there are people that just know more about 19th century music than you could possibly imagine. And now thinking has changed as of probably about 15 years ago that he had that song in mind because the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner is called Two Anacreon in Heaven was a very popular tune in the early republic.

And it was very common for people to morph words onto other, you know, people didn't care about copyrights back then. So historians now believe he was writing a song. And that did come on sheet music a couple of days after the Battle of Baltimore in September of 1814. But your point is a valid one. It didn't become the national anthem until 1931 officially. But it gained momentum again after the Civil War. There are a handful of other patriotic tunes that people played on patriotic occasions, such as Yankee Doodle Dandy.

and it was a song called Adams and Liberty and a few others, America the Beautiful. But as we went through the 19th century, Star Spangled Banner kind of perked up on its own. The military adopted it as their national anthem in the 1890s, and there was a movement in the early 20th century that finally resulted in the congressional resolution in 1931. And also, as you mentioned, there were three flag resolutions, right? one in 1777, creating the flag, one in 1818, when we had, remember, the original flag resolution was 13 stars and 13 stripes. Oops, we got more states. So there was a second flag resolution that said there will be a star and a stripe for every new state. Well, so in 1814, these star Spangled

Banner has 15 stars and 15 stripes because we had 15 states. But then when we got 20 states, there was the third and final flag resolution that said we will go back to 13 stripes and have a new star for each state as it comes into the union on the following July 4th. However, none of those three flag resolutions set out the order of the stars or the shape of the stars. That didn't happen until 1919 when President Taft signed a resolution. No, it was an executive order. finally setting out the official specifications for the flag. So there's really no official American flag until that time period. So that was the 48 star and then the 49 and the 50 star.

All the other ones, if you go look at people's flag collections, there's a lot of them online, historical flags, you will see every manner of arrangement of the stars in the Canton, especially before we had mass production when all flags were made by hand. It's because there was no official one. When did the rules of how to treat the flag really come into play? Because I remember that so clearly when I was a kid.

You know, you do not touch the ground with this flag. If you do, you have to burn it. I mean, all these real absolutes came into play. I guess it was with our generation, I suppose, right? Okay, so here's what happened. The U.S. flag code is what you're talking about. It's in the federal code. What happened was, as we got into the 20th century of the first two decades,

each of the military services had their own flag code, right? How to display the flag and so on. Patriotic groups had their own flag code. And so the government had the U.S. flag conference in Washington, D.C., where they brought 65 of these people together, and they came up with one federal flag code. Now, that didn't become codified until 1942. And that has been in the book since 1942, even though it's a federal law, You're not going to get arrested if you violate the flag code.

There's no flag police. You have to think of it as a series of guidelines. And they're also filled with misinformation. Sorry to tell you, if a flag touches the ground, you don't have to burn it, okay? It's not in the flag code. Never has been, I don't know where it came from. It might have been in one of the old flag codes that was adopted. But, you know, it's symbolically, metaphorically, it does show you this unique feeling.

and emotional feeling we have for the flag. So the flag code's only been changed a few times. So that's the flag code. Now, earlier I said that flag protection laws were on the books in all the states by the turn of the 20th century. And they were designed to counteract the rampant use of the commercial image of the flag

on advertising. And that's when these nonprofit flag groups grew up to lobby against this and to lobby for flag protection laws. And I read one of the brochures, and it goes on for three pages, single-spaced, about all the examples of where the flag is misused, including on beer and whiskey bottles. So these flag protection laws are on the books. Amazingly enough, there wasn't a federal flag protection law until 1968. 1968, the height of the Vietnam War, when the flag was, you know, people were burning the flag in protest. So that's the first federal flag protection law.

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled all of the flag protection laws in the states and the federal flag protection law unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds. Congress went right back and passed another flag protection law, and after they did, there were more flag burnings in the United States than any other time, and the Supreme Court upheld that law. So since 1990, the flag protection code is off the books. It's legal to burn a flag. it's legal to use it in a protest.

However, you have to separate the flag protection laws from the flag code, which is still very much on the books. But that is not a law that has enforcement powers and it's a series of guidelines. It's an amazing history, and I really invite people to read your book, Flag, an American biography, because it's such an interesting twist-and-turn route that this symbol takes throughout all of our history that really kind of mirrors the major events and eras of our time. And it's a fascinating through line, really, to get a handle on it. But in the end, you're left with a symbol, a piece of fabric that basically symbolizes us as a nation. Very beautifully, very simply.

And I think, you know, I challenge anyone to sort of blame it for anything. It is what it is. A unifying symbol. I get up every day, I said earlier on the thing. Try to put this flag up. It's like making the bed for me as an American. It's just one of those actions that's without judgment and without anything except my pride in the nation and my happiness and good fortune to be here. It's a really healthy thing, in my opinion.

And for that reason, July 4th ought to be celebrated in my opinion as well. But I'll get off my soapbox. Thank you, Mark Leipson, for writing this book and for joining us today. As we come up to the 250th anniversary of this country, it's especially important for all Americans to educate ourselves about all these issues. Thank you for joining us. Don, you're great. Thanks very much. Thanks for listening to this episode of American History Hit.

I hope you enjoyed it. Please don't forget to like, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you next time.