Stuff You Should Know - The Legend of Betsy Ross

Episode Date: January 24, 2019

Betsy Ross is an American icon to many, the seamstress who sewed the first U.S. flag because of a personal commission from George Washington. But is it true? Sort of. Learn all about this fascinating story today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Yankee Doodle Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles, Spirit of 76 Bryant, and Jerry, Bicentennial Baby Roland.

And I'm Josh, like I said. Jerry wishes she was a Bicentennial Baby. Yes, she does. Both of y'all do. I know, man, that'd be five years younger. Yep, that's exactly where I am, squarely in the Bicentennial Baby year. Oh, that's right.

A demand people refer to me as such when I'm out in public. Dr. Bicentennial Baby. Clark, yeah. Esquire. Yep. So how you feeling? Pretty good.

Good, man. We should probably say thank you to all the people who came out for our West Coast jaunt. Yeah, that's a good idea, Chuck. Last week. So big thanks to Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco for Stuff You Should Know shows, and then everyone who came out for Movie Crush

and Into the World Live. Yes, thank you to everybody for all of those jams. We had really good crowds and good responses everywhere we went. How'd your thing go? I was drunk in wine country. It went really well. I was tense and on stage in Cafe du Nord.

It actually went well when I went out. So it's like, it includes like a presentation, right? A visual, audio-visual thing. And I could not get it to start working for a good 15 seconds. Oh my God. Which in my mind was a good 15 minutes. And I was like, if you've all ever wanted to see someone die of fright on stage, you're about to.

But I got it working and it went well from there. But the thing that got me the most was they sat around for 30 more minutes after the show asking questions. So they were really into it and it meant a lot to me. Yes, great. Thank you. And I haven't been to Brooklyn yet, but this will come out after the Brooklyn show.

And I'm just going to, no, actually it'll come out probably the day of the Brooklyn show. I'll hold my thanks for then. We'll see how it goes Brooklyn. Great, congratulations. How did yours go with Busy Phillips? It was good, it was fun. She's super nice and I only made a couple

of really terrible jokes and I will cut those out. Oh, you got to leave them in, were they that bad? Yeah, they were pretty bad. Okay, like dad jokes or like super offensive jokes? No, one which evidently Emily said I said the wrong word which explains why it made no sense. Cause she even asked me yesterday, she was like, what was up with that one joke?

I was like, what? And I told her and she was like, no, no, no, that's not what you said. I was like, oh, I don't want to say it here, but it explained a lot. You got to tell me later, okay? Yeah, I'll totally tell you. Okay, cool.

What about the other one? Was it a dad joke? No, just dumb. Okay. Got to keep the image up, I know what you mean, man. Sure, but otherwise it'll be, although I got the file today and like the last 20 minutes of it aren't there so I emailed them and they're like,

please tell me this is not all. So it may be a truncated version. I don't know, we'll see. The lost episode is what they called that. I know. Okay, well good. Good, congratulations. I'm glad, aside from the file snafoo

and those two bad jokes that went well. Otherwise it was great. And we're gonna go back out on the road sometime soon we decided this year, right? Yeah, we're figuring it out. Hopefully another like nine-ish shows. Yeah, over the course of this year. Sure, places we've never been, places we have been.

Who knows, we're gonna mix it up. Yeah. Yeah, so keep an ear out for that. We've learned now we're just straight up going to put that in the beginnings of episodes. No messing around anymore. No messing around. Okay, so all of that of course segues quite nicely

into the story of Betsy Ross and the American flags origins. Fraud. I don't know if that's necessarily true. I don't think that's the official historical stance but I think a better way to say it Chuck is questioned. And hey, just a great story for history. So who cares if it's true? Yeah, lay off putts included.

No, no, the person who's like, you know. Said fraud. I guess so. So let's, well, I mean, let's get into this because the first thing that you will probably say if you're a Betsy Ross believer, she was a real person by the way. Yeah, I think the first thing a lot of our listeners

around the world will say is who is Betsy Ross? Sure, well, she is credited, which is where I was going with the sort of creation, design and sewing of the first flag, thanks to a lot of things, but certainly held up by a very famous painting called The Birth of Our Nation's Flag by Charles Weisberger.

Very famous painting. Yeah, but it's one of those paintings. It's like super old timey where there's a lot of written explanation painted into the painting. I just find that's just, there's nothing more old timey than that. Yeah, you wanna read that?

Well, sure, I wasn't expecting this. He says something along the lines. You're clicking just one in a word. Yeah, well, I don't have anything prepared. He said, this is The National Standard was made by Betsy Ross in 1776 at 239 Arch Street, Philadelphia in the room represented in this picture.

That's a lot of words, but it goes on still. The committee, Robert Morris and Honorable George Ross, accompanied by General George Washington, called upon this celebrated woman and together with her suggestions, produced our beautiful emblem of liberty. So what are you guys doing this weekend? I was thinking about maybe going roller skating.

I know it hasn't been invented yet because it's only 1870 something, 1893. And he actually wrote out 1870 something, 1893. I know. And then he said, how about this new country? Pretty neat, huh? Right, and then it just kind of trails off from there. It just ends there.

It's a lot, it's a really wordy painting, frankly. It is very wordy, but that helps sort of cement the idea that Betsy Ross was in fact, the designer and creator and seamstress, I guess, for the first flag. Well, I'm gonna take issue on behalf of some of our more historically astute listeners and say, I don't think she's credited with designing the flag.

I think that's the one thing that everybody agrees on is that she is not given credit for designing it. She's given credit for like physically creating the first flag and then helping with some troubleshooting in the early design. Oh, you should go to an elementary school. Why are they teaching otherwise? Sure, is that right?

Yeah, this is all created 100% by Betsy Ross. Fraud! That's not true. What? Which part's not true? You said it or the thing I just said? Neither one. Okay.

But we should talk about the real Betsy Ross because she was a real lady. She's not an apparition or a visage. She was born in 1752 on New Year's Day. She's a New Year's Day baby, supposedly. I think that's documented. Yeah, probably. Okay.

Elizabeth Griscombe was her name. Born to Samuel and Rebecca in Pennsylvania and her great-grandpappy, Andrew Griscombe, was a very notable Philadelphian. He was one of the first settlers in a carpenter and like built apparently a lot of Philadelphia's first buildings. Yeah, which is, I mean, that's pretty prominent

for that time because I mean, this is when the whole place is being settled and it's being settled by Quakers. So like Pennsylvania was a Quaker settlement and that's how Elizabeth Griscombe, aka Betsy Ross, which makes you think like she robbed banks later in life and went on the lamb and changed her name. Not true.

You'll see it'll all become apparent in a second. But she was raised as a strict Quaker in Pennsylvania. Right, one of nine children who grew to adulthood, but her parents had 17 kids, dude. That is so many kids. Man. Well, the Quakers take like keeping their faith going by multiplying seriously.

I mean, that's like how a lot of religious groups are, they do it twofold. They reproduce a lot and they also try to make sure that their members who are born into their groups marry other members born into the group so that they will raise more Quakers or what have you and whatever the religious group is. And actually Betsy ran afoul of this later on as we'll see.

She was a bit of a rebel. Yeah, and also I imagine Samuel as a Quaker was like, you know what's very fun? Procreation. And his wife was like, it's not as fun for me. And he's like, sure it is. That was such a great like 18th century Quaker impression. Maybe the best I've ever heard Chuck.

This is the one thing we're allowed to do that's good. Well, they, so the Quakers actually had a really, really liberal society. Like there was a lot of equality. There was a lot of, it was a very, they were a very peaceful group and still are. They're pacifists through and through, but they also were really strict morally.

Like if you were in a play, you could be fine 20 shillings and spend 10 days in jail for being in a play because it was just kind of frivolous and not very religious. But on the other hand, they all drank like fish. You just weren't allowed to sell it to like the Native Americans because they equated that with corrupting them. And this one Quakers.

Oh yeah. Sure. Nice. Do you? I think we used to work with one, didn't we? Yes. Yes. So I think we know the same Quakers.

Probably, but now I'm wondering, first of all, I was about to shout out the name. Then I was like, should I not? Then I was like, why wouldn't I? I just had a whole thing happen. Why would I? Yeah, exactly. And then you thought, fraud.

Well, some people like to keep their stuff personal. So I'm just, I'm not going to do that. Under the table, Quaker is what that is. But they're also called the Society of Friends. I think is the greatest name for any religious group of all time. Right, founded by six year olds. Society of Best Wins.

All right, so they're in Pennsylvania. The one thing that we do know is that her nickname was Betsy. And when she was about 15, she did learn to sew very well. She was an apprentice to an upholster named John Webster. And this is where she learned her craft. Right, and when you think of like, you always hear of Betsy Ross being a seamstress, right? She was not a seamstress.

She was, like you just said, an upholsterer, which involved a lot more than say, dressmaking. As a matter of fact, I'm sure she did make clothes here or there, she knew how to. But mostly her stuff was on like sewing curtains and tablecloths and rugs and like other textiles rather than like actual clothing. So she was an upholsterer through and through.

So is seamstress specifically clothing? That's the impression I have. Oh, interesting. I feel like such a fraud because I didn't look up the difference between the two, but that's my take on it. Well, I'm gonna find out. Also took umbrellas, Venetian blinds and flags.

That's something an upholsterer would have made back in the 18th century. Apparently a seamstress is any woman who sews. Okay. Anything. Oh, then I wonder if upholsterer is a specialty of a seamstress then. Yeah, probably so. Okay.

And what is a man who sews called? A seamsther. Maybe. Never thought about that. And if he's in the union, he's a seamsther, teamster. Oh, dad. I know, it's gotten really bad. Maybe we'll have Jerry cut that out

to keep my public inventory. So while she was doing this work, she met a man named John Ross. Note the last name. And he was also an apprentice. And he was good at it. And he opened his own shop. And he was sort of...

I mean, he came from a well-connected family. Yeah. And his actual uncle, George, who you might have recognized from that painting, George Ross Jr. He signed the Declaration of Independence. Right. So that's legit.

Oh, yeah. He was big time. He was, I think, a representative for Pennsylvania and the legislature. Either Pennsylvania or New Jersey, one of the two. He was a big wick. If he's hanging out with George Washington and Betsy Ross's upholstery shop,

then he was a big wick. That's right. A big powdered wick, by the way. So, her marriage to John Ross, it didn't last very long, although it was kind of marked by that younger age radicalism where she... So John Ross was an Anglican, right?

Yeah, he wasn't a Quaker, which was bad. Right. So they fell in love. He was an upholsterer as well. And John Ross and Betsy, later Betsy Ross, when they met and fell in love, they had to elope to New Jersey,

which everybody does, they elope to New Jersey, because her parents were like, you cannot do that. And she said, well, I'm doing it. And they said, well, then you're out. And she went off and got married. And she was excommunicated,

it's not the way I think it's specifically Catholic, but she was kicked out of the Quakers and her family disowned her. So she definitely loved the guy and went off and followed her heart. And they made sweet upholstery together because he opened his own shop actually. Yeah, it's really sad though.

I mean, it's great that they found each other, but anytime someone's like expelled and disowned by their family, it's just sort of over religions, a sad thing. Yeah, it is. Yeah, for any reason really, like bringing shame or dishonorance, like it's your family that's supposed to,

they're supposed to be there for you, no matter what. But it doesn't always work out that way. Which Chuck means that family is what you make of it. I thought family, what was it? Never trust family. Never trust family. That's specifically blood family. Oh, okay.

So the Revolutionary War comes along and in Philadelphia, people were kind of getting together forming militias in order to defend the city in case things went down. Right. And no one knows for sure what was going on with John and Betsy, but we do know that he died,

we just don't know quite how. Yeah, they think maybe it was either an accident or a death from being in the militia, or there's supposedly a family rumor that he may have suffered from mental illness and may have died as a result of something, some complication from that. Yeah, it's really sad though,

because that was obviously her true love enough to leave her family in religion. And she was widowed in 1776, just what, three years later after they got married. Yep. So it was just three years after, right? Yeah, okay. So when she was a widow,

that radicalism I mentioned earlier started to kick in. She went back to Quakers, if she ever left. I've never seen that she began attending like Anglican mass or anything, but she went back to the Quakers, but she joined a group, a specific group of Quakers called the Free Quakers or Fighting Quakers, who were like, yeah, we're Quakers,

but we also are not crazy into pacifism. Like a scrap. Well, yeah, we will. Shoved me back, shoved me and see what happens. And that was what they wore on their shirts. But, oh man. But the reason that they were anti-pacifistic because they wanted to support independence

and there was going to be a fight, a struggle for independence and you couldn't really side with one side and be a pacifist basically. Yeah. Remember our pacifism episode? That was a good one. Yeah, that was a good one.

So she was once again unlucky in love. She got married again to a man named Joseph Ashburn. He died in prison in Britain. And then she finally got married a third time to a man named John Claypool. And she was married to him until he died, but this was like 20 years this time. You wanna know how she and John Claypool met?

At her second husband's funeral? Almost. Okay. He showed up. At the bar afterward? John Claypool, even sooner than that. John Claypool was in prison with Joseph Ashburn over in Great Britain.

And after he got out, he made his way over to America. And he's the one who brought Betsy Ross the news that her husband had died. And then I guess he was like, so you doing all right? Can I be of any assistance for you? And rather than just being there for her, he took away the for her and he was just there. I wonder if he was like,

by the way, your husband's last words were totally, you should go marry my wife. That's the, that's what they used to do back in the day. So she worked as an upholster until she died at the age of 84 and 1836. She had five little girls, which is kind of great. And aside from that, that's kind of what we know about Betsy Ross as far as the facts go.

Yeah, that's about where they run out. And you might say, listener, well guys, you left out the most important one, the most important fact, the story of her sewing the American flag. Well, well, we're going to stick by what we just said and say that we just ran out of facts, which means it's pretty good time for a message break.

Don't you think Charles? Agreed. We'll be right back. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,

about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. OK, so it's about here that we should kind of go over the Betsy Ross legend, because what we just described is an 18th, early 19th century American woman who is a Quaker and an upholsterer, and her love life,

and her children, her offspring. Yes, that's it. That's all we've got. So the flag story for those of you who aren't familiar with this is that when Betsy Ross was hanging around her upholstery shop one day in Philadelphia, and I believe 1776, I think June 1776 is when they say it happened, three men came in, that trio,

including George Washington, George Ross, who was, remember, her first husband's uncle, and then a man named Robert Morris, who was a wealthy man known as the financier of the revolution, and considered one of the founders of the US financial system. These three come in very, very important men, and as legend goes, Betsy Ross recognized George Washington

immediately, and they said, Ms. Ross, we need your help. We're part of the Continental Congress's flag committee, and we've been tasked with coming up with the flag. Will you help us create this flag? And she basically said, let me see what you got. Yeah, she said, well, first of all, my husband passed away six months ago. So why are you bothering me of all people?

And Uncle George was like, I know, but you're still family. You still got Ross on your name, and this will make for a good story later. So she looks at the design, and she said, this is not bad. She said, but you may want to change the proportions a bit. And her real, and this is kind of the one thing that I think most historians do agree on, is that her one big change design-wise

was changing the star from a six-pointer to a five-pointer. Right, if you agree that Betsy Ross did have a hand in making the original flag, then yeah, you would probably say that's probably correct. And apparently just because it was easier on her to cut. Yeah, I think, though, that they were saying five-pointed stars would be harder than a six-pointed star. And she said, no, no, and whipped out her scissors

and cut up some either cloth or paper and showed them how easy it was. And they were like, oh, that's beautiful. And George Washington was like, oh, are we still talking about this? Can we go? He's like, why am I in a bullstree shop? Ruby in general.

Why am I in this story? It doesn't even make sense that I would be here. Oh, save that. OK. So they said, sure, that's fine. Easier to cut. You've proved it, even though George Ross was over there trying to cut the six and prove her wrong.

The sun went down, came back up. He was missing a fingertip. And so they said, that's fine. Let's just do it. And they draw out the new sketch. They incorporate her new star. And they said, get to it, kind lady. And she did.

And it was a big flag. It wasn't like this was when they were going to fly out in public, so it wasn't like a little tester flag. So it took a while. And it would take a few days, maybe. And she finally says, here's what I've got. And they say, this is great. Let's see how it looks on the mast of a ship.

They hoisted it up a ship. And they said, all right, I think we're good to go here, everyone. Ta-da. Basically, that's it. You know what's just occurred to me, Chuck, is how closely our history episodes resemble drunk history episodes.

I know, except for sober. Right, ish. But the flag, it's been proven on this mast of the ship. It looks beautiful. And they go back to Betsy Ross. And they say, Betsy, we're going to need a lot more of these. And the implication is commerce takes over, and Betsy becomes wealthy and secures her place

as one of the important figures of early American history. That's right. Here's the thing, though, is there is no proof or evidence that this happened. This all comes from a story that her grandson, William Canby, told in 1870. So she's been passed away for what, 30 years? Almost close to 40, yeah, between 30 and 40.

But it wasn't like she died 150 years before when her grandson wrote it down. He had known her in his lifetime. Yeah, and he said that his aunt had told him this 10 years before and said, listen, she told me this story. He recounted it probably in a much nicer way than we just did. And he told this in a speech at the Pennsylvania Historical

Society. And this was, you know, 1870. 1876 is right around the corner, and everyone's getting all hot and bothered by the upcoming celebration. And I think everyone just sort of, well, we'll get to the reasons why, but everyone definitely bought into this. This is great.

Let's run with it. Right. And so here's about where historians say, OK, all right. So William Canby produced this story in a speech to the Historical Society. It took place 100 years after the thing happened, almost 40 years after Betsy Ross died. It's family lore.

And apparently they got other people from the family to come testify like, yes, they've heard this story multiple times in very similar iterations. It's like the story of how our ancestor, or grandmother Anne, or whatever she was to them, sowed the first American flag. And they say, OK, we don't think that the Ross and Claypool families are liars by any stretch. They're not.

No, they just didn't make it up, you know. Right. That's kind of the, what's it called, when you give somebody the benefit of the doubt? Just benefit of the doubt. That's the benefit of the doubt that historians tend to give the families, that they're not just like liars who made this up, but it is family lore.

And so historians kind of approach it with a little bit of a grain of salt. The thing is, there's no other family in the United States who's saying, actually, it was our grandmother who made the first American flag. Or my grandfather was at that meeting, and he was the one who came over the stars. There's nothing like that.

There's no other competing stories to this one, to this family story. The reason why historians take it with a grain of salt is because, again, like you said, there's just no documentary evidence whatsoever to show that it ever did take place. Yeah, and there's like, there are a few flags here, red flags, that is, about why this may not be true.

What I think is that it is a version of the truth. And then history tells, wraps a good story around it. Right. There was no record of a flag committee being formed. The fact that George Washington was there is just doubtful in and of itself as a huge superstar army general and American hero that he would be. Like, we were kind of kidding around when he's like,

why am I here? But why would he have been there? Like, in person. Not only that, this was recounted by William Canby as a congressional committee for the flag. And there's two problems with that. One, George Washington wasn't a member of Congress. Right.

So again, why would they send him along with this committee? And then secondly, Congress never in any way, shape, or form on paper at least, took up a flag, the details of the flag, until 1777, a full year after the story supposedly took place. That's right. There are a few things working in her favor here. It is verified that she was paid a pretty good sum of money that same year by the Pennsylvania State Navy Board.

OK, I saw that she did make flags for the Pennsylvania Navy. Well, this is where it gets all murky, because there's another man which we'll get into. Let's put a pin in that, though, of that guy for now. OK, all right, because we were getting pretty fast and furious eight there. And there's also a painting supposedly dating to 1851, a different painting that shows her sewing an American flag.

But I don't think they have officially authenticated that it's from 1851. 1851? Yeah. Oh, OK. But here's what I don't understand. If there was a painting in 1851, I mean supposedly none of this happened until 1870?

The Canby story? Yeah, like when the big meeting took place. Well, I mean, that's when William Canby told that family story. But the fact that there's a painting that predates his speech by 19 years showing the same thing. Oh, sure. That lends support to his story, for sure. All right.

But it's still, that's an 1851 painting depicting something that happened 75 years prior. Right. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. My math was, I forgot 100 years. You forgot to carry the one? I did. But again, that painting is not, I don't think, fully authenticated.

So who knows if that's true or not. One of those dirty lying Ross Claypool family members did it in like 2012. I thought you said Les Claypool for a minute, and I was about to run out of the room. You know, like Les Claypool, huh? I'm not a Primus guy. So I wouldn't call myself a Primus guy either, but I like some of their songs.

Yeah. Yeah. So Chuck, you want to take another message break and then come back and get to it, get to the truth about the flag? Sure. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it.

It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step.

Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Charles. So you said that there was another guy who kind of muddles the issue a little bit and he does, but not fully.

Because if little school kids are being taught that Betsy Ross did design the flag, that is an issue because this guy named Francis Hopkinson is given credit more than anybody else for having a hand in designing the first American flag. If not being the designer of the American flag, this sketch that this trio of the congressional committee brought in allegedly. Yeah, so the story, the story I heard around the campfire of old Hopkinson was that he kind of was, in fact, the designer, he designed quite a few things back then for the United States. And the first thing that he did was say, I want payment of a quarter cask of wine. But then he said, actually, I want 2700 pounds, which would be like half a million pounds today. Wow. Apparently it bureaucracy took over and they batted it back and forth. And then we're like, well, no, we're paying you as an it's sort of that like working for a corporation and owning your own IP.

And they're like, no, we're paying you anyway. This is ours. And when you look at what he filed for, and this is where the naval thing comes in, it was for the naval flag of the United States is what he requested payment for. Right, supposedly the quarter cask of public wine was for the American flag and the the big old like 2700 pound bill was for the naval flag. And that's the only one that Congress responded to. They just totally ignored the first one, I guess. Yeah, but this is where I just get a little confused. Like it was important and that's the kind of one of the keys here, too, is that they needed a flag.

It wasn't just like, I mean, there were practical reasons, it's not like we just want to fly a flag like in battle. Flags are very important or they were back then, right? Because if you were a small Navy and you didn't have a flag that everyone knew as, you know, the United States would be basically don't bomb me. Right, exactly. Don't shoot. I'm friendly with you. We needed a naval flag. Right.

So they had, there were a bunch of flags that you could find in Revolutionary America at the time. There were some very famous ones that you would recognize today, the Washington Squadron. That's a good one. It is. It's a white flag with a green pine tree. Yeah, it's an appeal to heaven, too. Right, which is the point of that is to say that when you revolt, you're going above the king's head because the king had the divine right. Like they ruled by, you know, on behalf of heaven.

So by revolting against the king, you were going to heaven, the king's boss and saying, hey, we want to get rid of this guy. Yeah. But the pine tree, there was actually a revolt that was, that took place a few years before the Boston Tea Party even. It was the first revolt in the colonies against the king, the first actual revolt. And it was because the king said, I own this pine tree, I own that pine tree, I own this pine tree. And they were to make ships masks out of, they were very, very valuable, but the king was keeping all the good ones. And so these mill owners just started cutting up the king's ones as well. And the sheriff, and I can't remember where it was, but came to arrest a mill owner and some other mill owners came around and they beat the sheriff up and chased him off.

And that was the first actual act of rebellion in the colonies. And that's why the pine tree became a symbol of rebellion and revolution. Oh. Yeah, I didn't know that until today. It's a symbol of a pain in my butt. If you're king, the king, the king of England, but it's a pretty flag. It's all right. Okay, are you a Gadsden flag person?

No. Okay. Not that thing. That's too much controversy. That's the very famous, don't tread on me flag. Right. The rattlesnake coiled up saying, don't mess with Texas. No, not Texas.

Don't tread on me is what it says. Yeah, and then there's, of course, the Sons of Liberty flag, nine vertical stripes, red and white. It's fine. And this, you know, and this one took different, different, the one we stuck with with the 13 stripes and 13 stars over the blue field in the upper left corner. There were different designs for that, including one that I think I might have liked better. Well, one time they had 13 stars and forming a square. But then they had one where they were in an arch over 76, which I think would look kind of cool. That's a boss flag.

Yeah. Yeah, agreed. For a little while, they had the American flag, the red and white stripes, 13 red and white stripes, as a field on the flag. And then the Canton, which is a square in the upper left corner, which can be up to a quarter of the size of the flag. And it's still considered a Canton. Was the Union Jack, the British flag. Yeah, it looks real weird. And they apparently were running into trouble flying that too, because it was a little confusing.

So they abandoned that. And as legend has it, that flag is what showed that they really needed an official United States flag. And so that supposedly is what led to that Betsy Roth flag, which was 13 stars in a circle on Canton, a blue Canton, with the 13 alternating red and white stripes. Yeah, I would say that at the very least, the Union, the Grand Union flag, as it was known with the Union Jack in the corner, was highly confusing in battle. Right. So Congress, it becomes clear to them that they that, yes, they need a flag.

We need a national flag. But the big distinction between what actually happened and this story of Betsy Ross is that they didn't say anything about the flag until June 14th, 1777, when they passed a flag resolution. And they just basically said, yeah, these are some things we want on the flag. And that's it. And that's the first time there's any trail, any paper trail of the United States actually thinking and talking about and discussing a flag. And we have every other change from then up to, I think, 1959 or 1960 from 1777 on to the mid 20th century. You know, every change that was made because they documented it.

But this alleged first Betsy Ross flag took place outside of that documented history. Well, they may not have known at the time, you know, that this was something important. Yeah, I guess so. So, you know, why does this happen? Well, there's a lot of reasons. One reason was even way back in the 1870s, there was a notion that women were doing some great things and being overlooked. And they wanted to inspire young women and girls across the country to do great things as well. So what better way to do so than to sort of gussie up this Betsy Ross story?

Right. There was also like a desire for, you kind of referenced it earlier about the centennial coming up in 1876. There was like a real hunger in the United States, which was a relatively young country to have its own mythology. And so that's what some of these stories that were being kind of generated and rehashed or put down on paper for maybe the first time. That's what they provided was this shared national history that the United States citizens were kind of like rallying behind. Yeah. And that's a good example of why that would have taken off and become cemented. Yeah, the other thing that kind of cracks me up is the fact that George Washington was in the story himself.

Right. Because apparently he was just such a legend at the time and just, you know, emblematic of what this country was and would be is that he turned up in a lot of stories that he was never really at. Right. Because, I mean, this is a time where people would just tell a story and be like, and guess who else was there? Maybe if they're losing the crowd. Right. General George Washington himself.

The crowd just gasps and sits up. Yeah. That's great if they're losing the crowd. And then of course, the easiest explanation is that, you know, it's a simple story and it's easy to tell and it's pretty streamlined. It has a nice beginning, middle, and end. And it's much better than some weird convoluted retelling that no one would remember anyway. Right. So here's where Francis Hopkinson comes in the story.

It's going to get a little muddy here, kid, but just try to find. He has to find, but then money and then it was a naval flag. Right. Let's see. I got a couple of things about the flag. So, you know, there's the study of flags, how they're made, what they symbolize is called valoxology. I thought it was flaggery. No.

That's where you're starting to lose steam. Oh, OK. Valoxology, there's a great 99% invisible episode on flags. Oh, yeah, that's right. I knew I heard that word. That's a good one. Yeah, it is. So the United States flag, there's 13 horizontal stripes, 7 red, 6 white, in case you ever want to win at trivia.

The stripes are the 13 colonies, obviously, and the stars are the 50 states of the Union. The red symbolizes hardiness and valor, not blood. White symbolizes purity and innocence. Blue represents vigilance, perseverance, and justice. And if you ever want to see a heck of a flag, go to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. And you can see the Star Spangled Banner, the flag that was flying over Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key looked up in the dawn's light and saw that it was still flying over there, despite just a massive assault by the British and was inspired to write the Star Spangled Banner,

which became the National Anthem in 1933, I believe. Yeah, 1931, of course, is what I meant. Amazing. So that's the flag. And Betsy Ross, go forth and tell the truth. And if you want to know more about Betsy Ross, you can read this article, a fine one, by Ed Grabinowski, actually, on HowStuffWorks.com. Since I said that, it's time for Listener Mail.

I'm going to call this really cool email from an Atari guy. This is thrilling. I thought so, too. Hey, guys, love the show. I worked at Atari in the late 70s. I ran the warehouse. In 1976, Warner Brothers purchased Atari from its founder, Nolan Bushnell. Nolan stayed on for a couple of years after that, before departing in 78.

The cartridges created to meet movie releases is probably one of the reasons he left. When I first heard that the E.T. cartridges had been buried, I laughed, because I oversaw the burying of leftover Superman cartridges for that first movie in 78 at the Sunnyvale, California landfill, which is right across the street from the building I ran, something you would not be able to do today because of environmental restrictions. Like the E.T. cartridge, Superman would fly around, pick up Lois Lane and rescue her from some villains. The only problem is Superman kept dropping her, and she would plummet to the ground.

That's a bug. It's so funny. It's just so similar to E.T. The cartridge was rushed into production, was a huge flop. I thought you might find the Warner Brothers tie interesting. That is from Gordon C. Ulig. Nice. Thanks a lot, Gordon.

That was a good one. I think he runs his own I.T. business now, too. Yeah, man. That's what happens. If you want to get in touch with us like Gordon did with a great story that rounds out something we were talking about, we love those things. You can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K Podcast. You can join us on facebook.com at slash stuff you should know.

You can hang out with us on Instagram. I've got my own site, the Josh Clark way, and then as always, you can send us a nice e-mail to stuffpodcastandhowstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to HeyDude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye-bye-bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.