Emily Wagner's List: EDIM 504 DST

• historic marker in front of her house
• Credited with making the first stars and stripes flag, Ross was a successful upholsterer. She produced flags for the government for over 50 years. As a skilled artisan, Ross represents the many women who supported their families during the Revolution and early Republic."
• June 14, 1777 {"Resolved. That the flag of the united states be 13 stripes alternate red and white, that the Union be 13 stars white in a blue field representing a new constellation"}. The lack of specificity in the Flag Resolution suggests that it was making official a flag that was already recognized as the de facto national flag.
• he Grand Union Flag that was hoisted by the Continentals was mistaken as a token of surrender.
• On February 20, Washington issued an order for distinctive regimental uniforms and flags.
• The design of a new flag was important to Washington. It's quite conceivable that George Ross knowing of the hard circumstances of his young relative, suggested Betsy. Washington and Robert Morris both prayed at Christ Church with Betsy Ross, so would be familiar with her. She would be a very likely choice for the sewing of the flag.

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• Betsy went to a Friends (Quaker) public school. For eight hours a day she was taught reading, writing, and received instruction in a trade — probably sewing.
• Betsy's father apprenticed her to a local upholsterer.
• hey performed all manner of sewing jobs, including flag-making. It was at her job that Betsy fell in love with another apprentice, John Ross, who was the son of an Episcopal assistant rector at Christ Church.
• Quakers frowned on inter-denominational marriages. The penalty for such unions was severe — the guilty party being "read out" of the Quaker meeting house. Getting "read out" meant being cut off emotionally and economically from both family and meeting house. One's entire history and community would be instantly dissolved. On a November night in 1773, 21-year-old Betsy eloped with John Ross. They ferried across the Delaware River to Hugg's Tavern and were married in New Jersey. Her wedding caused an irrevocable split from her family.
• Betsy and John Ross keenly felt the impact of the war. Fabrics needed for business were becoming hard to come by. Business was slow. John joined the Pennsylvania militia. While guarding an ammunition cache in mid-January 1776, John Ross was mortally wounded in an explosion. Though his young wife tried to nurse him back to health he died on the 21st and was buried in Christ Church cemetery.

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• ot only did they both worship at Christ Church in Philadelphia, but Betsy's pew was next to George and Martha Washington's pew.
• etsy, a standout with the scissors, demonstrated how to cut a five-pointed star in a single snip. Impressed, the committee entrusted Betsy with making our first flag.
• Obviously a new flag was needed.
• in May the Congressional Committee called upon her at her shop. She finished the flag either in late May or early June 1776
• Through it all she managed to run her own upholstery business (which she continued operating for several decades after the war) and after the soldiers left, she wove cloth pouches which were used to hold gunpowder for the Continentals.
• On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress, seeking to promote national pride and unity, adopted the national flag. "Resolved: that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."

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• made the first Star-spangled Banner that ever was made
• on the order of a Committee, of whom Col. Ross was one, and that Robert Morris
• General Washington, acting in conference with the committee, called with them at her house
• in the month of June 1776, or shortly before the Declaration of Independence that the committee called on her.
• Ross was an uncle of her deceased husband.
• previously well acquainted with Washington, and that he had often been in her house in friendly visits, as well as on business. That she had embroidered ruffles for his shirt bosoms and cuffs, and that it was partly owing to his friendship for her that she was chosen to make the flag.
• one of them asked her if she could make a flag and that she replied that she did not know but she could try.
• hey then showed her a drawing roughly executed, of the flag as it was proposed to be made by the committee, and that she saw in it some defects in its proportions and the arrangement and shape of the stars
• she said it was square and a flag should be one third longer than its width, that the stars were scattered promiscuously over the field, and she said they should be either in lines or in some adopted form as a circle, or a star, and that the stars were six-pointed in the drawing, and she said they should be five pointed.
• General Washington seating himself at a table with a pencil and paper, altered the drawing and then made a new one according to the suggestions of my mother
• General Washington seemed to her to be the active one in making the design, the others having little or nothing to do with it
• That mother went diligently to work upon her flag and soon finished it, and returned it, the first star-spangled banner that ever was made, to her employers, that it was run up to the peak of one of the vessels belonging to one of the committee then lying at the wharf, and was received with shouts of applause by the few bystanders who happened to be looking on
• the committee on the same day carried the flag into the Congress sitting in the State House, and made a report presenting the flag and the drawing and that Congress unanimously approved and accepted the report
• next day Col. Ross called upon my mother and informed her that her work had been approved and her flag adopted, and he gave orders for the purchase of all the materials and the manufacture of as many flags as she could make. And that from that time forward, for over fifty years she continued to make flags for the United States Government.

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