The First American Flag
If I have learned nothing, it is to always follow the links, for that is where you find stuff.
Back in grade school, I was assigned a "paper" on Betsy Ross, supposedly the first person to design the flag we here in the United States fly today (in its form modified by national changes to the country itself). General George Washington supposedly visited Ross and asked if she could design and make flags for the new country. Among other details, she supposedly suggested the five-pointed star be present rather than the six-pointer; this was because they were easy to sew (if memory of that book read over 40 years ago is correct).
So a friend sent me an article from Kos over at the Daily Kos concerning the whiteness of one proposed Confederate Flag design. A link in that short article quoted the designer of the Confederate Flag:
As a people, we are fighting to maintain the heaven ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race ; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.
I'll leave you to peruse the link and Kos' article; it's worth a gander. Once I got sucked into that link, I was hooked for hours. This book, Flag of the United States, with an Introductory Account, written in 1872 by Geo. Henry Preble, U.S.N., is an exhaustive examination not just of the US flag we know so well, but of just about every flag every flown. We don't get to the Stars and Bars until Part III and more than 180 pages. Here, we finally learn:
On Saturday, the 14th of June, 1777, the American congress "RESOLVED, That the flag of the thirteen United States by thirteen stripes alternate read and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." This is the first and only legislative action, of which there is any record for the establishment of a National Flag for the sovereign United States of America. . . . This dilatory resolve of congress, it will be observed, was not passed until eighteen months after the union flag raising at Cambridge, and the sailing of the first American fleet from Philadelphia under Continental colors. Nearly a year after the declaration of the entire separation of the colonies from Great Britain, and another two and a half months elapsed before it was promulgated officially. There was red tape in those early days as well as now.
(Linked scanned book, p. 187.)
The author goes on to cite some pretty interesting sources conjecturing on the origin of the five-pointed star and its relation to Washington (stuff about his noble ancestors that the General himself never related in either diaries or correspondence). I'm going to bury the lead a bit and relate the storybook origin. Here's how Mr. Preble relates it:
A committee of congress, of whom Col. George Ross was one, accompanied by General Washington, in June, 1776, called upon Mrs. Ross, who was an upholsterer, and engaged her to make the flag from a rough drawing which, according to her suggestions, was redrawn by General Washington in pencil "then and there in her back parlor."
(Ibid, p. 192.)
Yes, that was the account I remembered from my childhood report. It gets interesting, though, to relate what immediately preceded this account:
In 1870, Mr. Wm. J. Canby, of Philadelphia, read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania a paper on the History of the American Flag, in which he states that his maternal grandmother, Mrs. John Ross, was the first maker and partial designer of the stars and stripes.
(Ibid.)
Got that? The historical account is from Mrs. Ross's grandson. It is primarily an oral history told second-hand by the family of the principal agent of the story. He backs this history by citing other relatives who have heard this story. The catch: They all heard the design story from the woman herself.
Three of Mrs. Ross's daughters were living when Mr. Canby wrote his paper, and confirm its statements, founding their belief not upon what they themselves saw-for the incident occurred many years before their birth-but upon what their mother had told them concerning it.
(Ibid, p. 193.)
The author received and included contents of a letter from Mr. Canby defending his account, including written statements from an aunt who had also been involved in early flag making after Mrs. Ross retired from the activity; that cannot, though, corroborate the fact that no written official design of the flag account exists. Mr. Preble is forced to conclude at the top of p. 192:
We people are social beasts who relate the world around with story telling. The more complete the story, the better. Evidence is often an impediment to a good story. And the more iconic an item, the more necessary the story to back its importance. After all, as the author quotes in the beginning of his (as far as I can tell with a few hours of skimming) excellent book:
There is the national flag! He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country.
-Charles Sumner
Back in grade school, I was assigned a "paper" on Betsy Ross, supposedly the first person to design the flag we here in the United States fly today (in its form modified by national changes to the country itself). General George Washington supposedly visited Ross and asked if she could design and make flags for the new country. Among other details, she supposedly suggested the five-pointed star be present rather than the six-pointer; this was because they were easy to sew (if memory of that book read over 40 years ago is correct).
So a friend sent me an article from Kos over at the Daily Kos concerning the whiteness of one proposed Confederate Flag design. A link in that short article quoted the designer of the Confederate Flag:
As a people, we are fighting to maintain the heaven ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race ; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.
I'll leave you to peruse the link and Kos' article; it's worth a gander. Once I got sucked into that link, I was hooked for hours. This book, Flag of the United States, with an Introductory Account, written in 1872 by Geo. Henry Preble, U.S.N., is an exhaustive examination not just of the US flag we know so well, but of just about every flag every flown. We don't get to the Stars and Bars until Part III and more than 180 pages. Here, we finally learn:
On Saturday, the 14th of June, 1777, the American congress "RESOLVED, That the flag of the thirteen United States by thirteen stripes alternate read and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." This is the first and only legislative action, of which there is any record for the establishment of a National Flag for the sovereign United States of America. . . . This dilatory resolve of congress, it will be observed, was not passed until eighteen months after the union flag raising at Cambridge, and the sailing of the first American fleet from Philadelphia under Continental colors. Nearly a year after the declaration of the entire separation of the colonies from Great Britain, and another two and a half months elapsed before it was promulgated officially. There was red tape in those early days as well as now.
(Linked scanned book, p. 187.)
The author goes on to cite some pretty interesting sources conjecturing on the origin of the five-pointed star and its relation to Washington (stuff about his noble ancestors that the General himself never related in either diaries or correspondence). I'm going to bury the lead a bit and relate the storybook origin. Here's how Mr. Preble relates it:
A committee of congress, of whom Col. George Ross was one, accompanied by General Washington, in June, 1776, called upon Mrs. Ross, who was an upholsterer, and engaged her to make the flag from a rough drawing which, according to her suggestions, was redrawn by General Washington in pencil "then and there in her back parlor."
(Ibid, p. 192.)
Yes, that was the account I remembered from my childhood report. It gets interesting, though, to relate what immediately preceded this account:
In 1870, Mr. Wm. J. Canby, of Philadelphia, read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania a paper on the History of the American Flag, in which he states that his maternal grandmother, Mrs. John Ross, was the first maker and partial designer of the stars and stripes.
(Ibid.)
Got that? The historical account is from Mrs. Ross's grandson. It is primarily an oral history told second-hand by the family of the principal agent of the story. He backs this history by citing other relatives who have heard this story. The catch: They all heard the design story from the woman herself.
Three of Mrs. Ross's daughters were living when Mr. Canby wrote his paper, and confirm its statements, founding their belief not upon what they themselves saw-for the incident occurred many years before their birth-but upon what their mother had told them concerning it.
(Ibid, p. 193.)
The author received and included contents of a letter from Mr. Canby defending his account, including written statements from an aunt who had also been involved in early flag making after Mrs. Ross retired from the activity; that cannot, though, corroborate the fact that no written official design of the flag account exists. Mr. Preble is forced to conclude at the top of p. 192:
We people are social beasts who relate the world around with story telling. The more complete the story, the better. Evidence is often an impediment to a good story. And the more iconic an item, the more necessary the story to back its importance. After all, as the author quotes in the beginning of his (as far as I can tell with a few hours of skimming) excellent book:
There is the national flag! He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country.
-Charles Sumner