5 Fables Concerning The United States Flag&Betsy Ross
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 celebrate, 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 inside our anthem that is national have actually any occasion, Flag Day, to honor it every June 14, as well as contain it on prominent display for the Fourth of July.
Yet the iconography and reputation for the flag that is american specially its very very very early history, are infused with misconception and misrepresentation. Listed here are five of the most extremely common fables.
Myth # 1: Betsy Ross made the very first American banner.
The Betsy Ross tale is considered the most piece that is tenacious of relating to the banner. There just is not any legitimate evidence that is historical letters, diaries, newsprint reports, bills of purchase — that Ross (then referred to as Elizabeth Claypoole) either made or possessed a submit designing the US banner before it made its first in 1777.
The tale cropped up in 1870, 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 evidence that is sole affidavits from family unit members. The iconic 1893 artwork of Ross sitting in her Philadelphia parlor with all the sunlight beaming down in the banner inside her lap is just a scene devised by Charles H. More
