- ANTONE PIERUCCI
- Posted On
This Week in History: The story behind the US flag’s origin
June 14 is Flag Day, the day we celebrate the birthday of the Stars and Stripes. But do you know the story behind the flag?
Of all the designs the new country could have chosen, why the stars and stripes?
Tradition tells us the quaint story of Betsy Ross, which goes like this:
George Washington and Robert Morris (a main financier of the war) went with a man named George Ross to the upholstery shop run by one of his relatives, a Mrs. Betsy Ross.
The American general – apparently taking time off from the desperate conflict raging about him to get some interior design tips from a random woman – had in hand a rough sketch of a flag he wanted for his new army. He wanted to know what Mrs. Ross thought.
With a critical eye, the veteran upholsterer made a few suggested alterations, changing the number of points on the stars from five to six (can you imagine a flag full of pentagrams?) and otherwise fine-tuning the sketch. With the men’s approval, Betsy Ross proceeded to sew the first official American flag.
This is the story passed down over the years in nursery rhymes and folk songs and absolutely no documentary evidence exists to substantiate it. So what do we know?
Well for one, we know that on June 14, 1777, in the early years of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the official national flag. The resolution read:
“Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
Not very descriptive when you think about it? A half-decent lawyer could find enough loopholes in that short resolution to create pretty much any flag he wished.
To start, no mention is given on how the stars and stripes are to be represented together. It would technically be true for the American flag to display the constellation of stars in the main field with the stripes in the upper left corner. For that matter, the stripes could appear in any corner or no corner at all. Who’s to say?
Although the exact details escape us, we can at least trace the origins of the flag with some certainty. A brief look at them might give us some insight into how Congress came up with the design they did.
Since the United States was the rebellious child of Great Britain, it’s no surprise that the story of its flag is tied to the tradition of our own.
From 1707 until the Revolution, a British naval flag called the Meteor Flag or Red Ensign was a common sight up and down the Atlantic seaboard in colonial harbors. Flown by ships of the Royal Navy, it was red with Union Jack in the upper left corner. The location of the Union Jack would be the exact location of our Stars against a blue field.
Okay, so we’re getting somewhere. But what about the stripes?
As the Revolutionary War got under way, farmers-turned-soldiers from every colony showed up to fight, each group carrying their own kind of flag. Such diversity wouldn’t do, so the patriots decided they needed a single flag to represent all American forces.
The Grand Union Flag, also known as the Congress Colors, First Ensign and Cambridge Flag emerged as the unofficial national flag during the early years of the war. However, this new flag, meant to be the one to represent all American forces, was rarely flown over anything other than ships.
This wouldn’t be the flag to confront England’s forces on the battlefield. It was, however, the flag to fly over America’s first Continental fleet (and is considered by many to be the first “true” American flag).
The Grand Union took the design of the Meteor Flag and added red and white stripes to the main field. So when Congress passed the resolution on June 14, 1777, dictating that the flag display stripes and stars, everyone at least had an idea of what they were talking about.
But, other than Betsy Ross, who could have been the first person to set pen to paper and given life to the design congress had in mind?
The answer is less romantic than an old lady upholsterer.
The only evidence we have for who designed the flag comes from a series of angry letters written by a disgruntled politician and a series of government reports his letter sparked. His name was Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration and Congressman and chair of the Navy board during the war.
In 1780, Hopkinson sent a letter to the Admiralty demanding payment for work he had done during his time on the Navy board. At the bottom of a long list of things he had designed, including things like ornaments for letterheads, Hopkinson claimed he had designed “the flag of the United States of America” (way to bury the lead, right?).
In typical government fashion, the letter made the rounds among politicians and bureaucrats before someone had the bright idea to waste Congressional time by appointing a committee to investigate Hopkinson’s claims (after all, the only other thing on their agenda was fighting the British, so there was plenty of time!).
In the end, the committee found that Hopkinson had indeed had a part in designing the flag, but had not been the only man consulted, and therefore did not deserve full credit – or payment – for his contribution.
What had he asked for in exchange for designing the most powerful symbol of this country?
A quarter of a cask of wine.
I think we had better stick to the Betsy story for our nursery rhymes.
Happy Flag Day.
Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.