Posted on
September 21, 2019
We the social people love and honor the Stars and Stripes but have not learned its entire truth
A artwork by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (circa 1920) of Betsy Ross and George Washington (far left)
Americans love our banner. We show it at concerts and stadiums to commemorate, and also at times during the nationwide tragedy to exhibit our resolve.
We now have our schoolchildren pledge allegiance to it; we now have consecrated it within our national anthem; we have any occasion, Flag Day, to honor it every June 14, also contain it on prominent display for the Fourth of July.
Yet the iconography and history of the flag that is american particularly its very early history, are infused with misconception and misrepresentation. Listed here are five of the most extremely myths that are prevalent.
Myth # 1: Betsy Ross made the initial US flag.
The Betsy Ross tale is one of tenacious little bit of fiction concerning the banner. There just is not any legitimate evidence that is historical letters, diaries, paper records, bills of purchase — that Ross (then referred to as Elizabeth Claypoole) either made or had a turn in creating the US banner before it made its first in 1777.
The storyline cropped up in 1870, very nearly a century following the flag that is first supposedly sewn, whenever William Canby, Ross’ grandson, told the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia that their grandmother made the banner at George Washington’s behest. Canby’s single proof: affidavits from loved ones. The iconic 1893 artwork of Ross sitting in the sun to her Philadelphia parlor beaming down in the flag inside her lap is just a scene designed by Charles H. Weisgerber, the musician and business owner whom profited through the Betsy Ross legend.
While Ross did make flags in Philadelphia within the belated 1770s, it’s all but sure the storyline about her producing the flag that is american a misconception.