Letter to the Editor: Betsy Ross fact check

To the Editor:

1. According to the U.S. government, there is no historical evidence that Betsy Ross made the first Stars and Stripes. The story of Mrs. Ross and the first Stars and Stripes is based on Ross family oral history from 1870 - nearly a century after the War for Independence. Although Mrs. Ross made flags for 50 years, she made flags for Pennsylvania’s Navy during the War. (Source: “Our Flag.” Joint Committee on Printing. United States Congress. H. Doc. 100-247. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1989. p. 2.)

2. The so-called “Betsy Ross Flag” dates from the early 1790s - not from the War for Independence. (Source: “Our Flag.” p. 2.)

3. Betsy Ross was not associated with her eponymous flag until Charles H. Weisger painted “Birth of Our Nation’s Flag” for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
Sources: (A). Furlong, William Rea and Byron McCandless. “So Proudly We Hail: The History of the United States Flag.” Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. 1981. pp. 116 and 117; (B). Harker, John Balderston. “Betsy Ross’s Five Pointed Star: Elizabeth Claypoole, Quaker Flag Maker - A Historical Perspective.” Melbourne Beach, FL: Canmore Press. 2005. p. 94. (Note: The author was a direct descendant of Mrs. Ross.)

4. The latest research on the historical Betsy Ross has been uploaded to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_Ross.

5. Scholars now credit Francis Hopkinson as the American flag’s designer. (Source: Leepson, Marc. “Flag: An American Biography.” St. Martin’s Griffin. 2005. p. 33.)

6. The Flag Manufacturers Association of America (FMAA) issued the following Tweet on February 4, 2021:
FMAA@FMAA_USA - #FlagFact: The designer of the American flag was Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence as a delegate from New Jersey. FMAA_USA.COM

7. The latest research on Francis Hopkinson and the Stars and Stripes has been uploaded to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Hopkinson.

Yours sincerely,
Earl P. Williams, Jr.
U.S. Flag Historian
Paleovexillologist