Betsy Ross Nylon Flag
$59.95 – $109.95
Betsy Ross Nylon Flag – The Betsy Ross flag is a reconstructed early design for the flag of the United States, which is conformant to the Flag Act of 1777 and has red stripes outermost and stars arranged in a circle. These details elaborate on the 1777 act, passed early in the American Revolutionary War, which specified 13 alternating red and white horizontal stripes and 13 white stars in a blue canton. It was once widely believed that, shortly after the 1777 act, upholsterer and flag maker Betsy Ross produced a flag of this design.
About Our Betsy Ross Nylon Flag
Betsy Ross (1752–1836) was an upholsterer in Philadelphia who produced uniforms, tents, and flags for Continental forces. Although her manufacturing contributions are documented, a popular story evolved in which Ross was hired by a group of founding fathers to make a new U.S. flag. According to the legend, she deviated from the 6-pointed stars in the design and produced a flag with 5-pointed stars, instead. The claim by her descendants that Betsy Ross contributed to the flag's design is not generally accepted by modern American scholars and vexillologists. Ross became a notable figure representing the contribution of women in the American Revolution, but how this specific design of the U.S. flag became associated with her is unknown. An 1851 painting by Ellie Sully Wheeler of Philadelphia displayed Betsy Ross sewing a U.S. flag. The National Museum of American History suggests that the Betsy Ross story first entered into American consciousness about the time of the 1876 Centennial Exposition celebrations. In 1870, Ross's grandson, William J. Canby, presented a paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in which he claimed that his grandmother had "made with her hands the first flag" of the United States. Canby said he first obtained this information from his aunt Clarissa Sydney Wilson (née Claypoole) in 1857, twenty years after Betsy Ross's death. In his account, the original flag was made in June 1776, when a small committee – including George Washington, Robert Morris and relative George Ross – visited Betsy and discussed the need for a new U.S. flag. Betsy accepted the job to manufacture the flag, altering the committee's design by replacing the six-pointed stars with five-pointed stars. Canby dates the historic episode based on Washington's journey to Philadelphia, in late spring 1776, a year before Congress passed the Flag Act. Ross biographer Marla Miller notes that even if one accepts Canby's presentation, Betsy Ross was merely one of several flag makers in Philadelphia, and her only contribution to the committee's design was the change in star shape from 6-pointed to 5-pointed.
