The mutable story of Betsy Ross and the flag

This article was published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on September 12, 2009. A video and interactive map were also published on the website on the same day.

By Naomi Nix
Inquirer Staff Writer

In hushed tones, Betsy Ross motions three children into a secret huddle to show them her latest act of treason against the British government: the first American flag.

It is the 1777 version, with 13 stripes of red and white, and 13 five-pointed white stars in a circle on a field of blue.

Just as she did for the Founding Fathers three centuries ago, Ross boasts to the children that she can make a five-pointed star with just one snip of her scissors.

Carrie Haynes, 11, and Mary Neely, 7, believe her. Adam Young, 11, looks skeptical.

"George Washington did not believe it either," says Ross, with an English accent.

After one snip of her scissors, she hands them a five-pointed star.

And three more children have learned the story of the great American flagmaker. From family legend to the tale of a Revolutionary War hero and now a tourist stop, the story of Betsy Ross has evolved over the last 200 years.

Meredith Rich is at the forefront of how the story is told today. She is the newest of the three actresses who currently play Ross at the Betsy Ross House in Old City.

Retelling the nation's history at the heart of where it happened is one of the city's main selling points for tourists, and the Betsy Ross House is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the region. With suggested donations ranging from $2 to $5, the house receives close to 300,000 visitors each year, said Heather Kincade, a representative for the house.

While the economy has reduced the city's draw, Philadelphia continues as a tourist mecca, attracting 29 million domestic visitors in 2008 - up 35 percent from 1997, according to the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp.

As one of the city's tourism ambassadors, Rich helps enrich the experience for tourists interested in the city's historic stories.

"One of my favorite things is to help people realize that history is real, and it is alive in Philadelphia," said Rich, 22, a 2008 graduate of Franklin and Marshall College with a double major in government and theater.

Rich, 22, is the youngest actress to play Betsy, around the age Ross was (24) when she was supposed to have made the flag.

Though every storyteller who works for Historic Philadelphia gets the same training, each can bring her own spin to the character.

Rich said playing Ross is "second nature" as she tries to bring out their shared background in Quakerism. She often addresses visitors with "thee" and "thou," and walks around the courtyard with her hands folded together stiffly in front of her, as a basket with the American flag in it hangs by her elbows. If she is uncomfortable on a hot August day in in her full length skirt, long white apron, and bonnet, she doesn't show it.

She said it feels natural to her to play Betsy as "a little more reserved." And she especially likes matching historical wits with visitors.

"It's very entertaining to get to use your full knowledge and to get to prove what you know," said Rich.

One question that comes up is whether Ross really did make the nation's first flag. Rich doesn't shy away from the answer.

"Thou does not need to believe my entire story if thou would not, but I am telling it to thee as my own truth," she said.

While there is evidence that Ross made flags, historians question whether she made the first one.

"You have to think of it as a cherished American myth, not as a historical record," said Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a professor of early American history at Harvard University.

"There is no strong evidence to support the Betsy Ross story," said Jim Gardner, project director of a Smithsonian Institution project on the American flag.

Ulrich explained how Ross' name became connected to the American flag.
The Continental Congress passed a resolution specifying vague requirements for the flag, which led to many versions. One of the strongest pieces of documentary evidence is a 1777 receipt for a flag from Betsy Ross, which is the same year she was supposed to have made the flag. There were many other women flagmakers at the time, historians noted.

"She definitely had a role in the creation of the early American flags," although "there really is not a first American flag," said Marla Miller, a University of Massachusetts professor whose book Betsy Ross and the Making of America is due out in April.

In 1870 William J. Canby, Ross' grandson, introduced the flag story when he read a paper before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Canby said Washington and two members of the Continental Congress brought Ross a sketch of a striped flag with 13 white stars in a field of blue, and asked her to sew it. The stars had six points, but Ross, according to the legend, showed them that a five-pointed star was easier to make. The story of the first American flag was born.

"She became the mother of the country, comparable as George Washington as the father of the country," Gardner said.

Historians say the story gained traction in the late 19th century, when America was recovering from the Civil War and an influx of immigrants made Americans look at the flag with more reverence.

When the story emerged in the 1870s, as the suffragist movement was taking shape, even Americans with different attitudes towards women's rights could identify with Ross.

For Rich, the academic controversy over the origins of the American flag does not affect why she tells the Betsy Ross story.

"It wasn't out of the question," Rich said. "Even if she didn't make the flag, she is still one of the most remarkable women of her time."

Rich, who remembered going to the Betsy Ross House for class field trips, says the "magic" happens when children get excited about history and share what they have learned when they return to school.

"When you can see a child light up when you make them a star or show them a flag," Rich said, "that is really a wonderful thing."