George T. Salgado, age 11, of Tucson, Arizona, for his question:
Who really made the first U.S. flag?
Most Americans like to believe that the first stars and stripes flag was made by Betsy Ross of Philadelphia. This is most likely true, but certain people have disputed it. Historians have a lot of evidence in favor of Betsy, but they do not accept it as definite proof that she made our first flag.
A flag represents a whole country and naturally lots of people have ideas about creating it. During the years that gave birth to our nation, many flags were designed for different states and cities, regiments and armies. Our magnificent Old Glory had lots of ancestors. These ancestral flags are engraved on a special series of six cent postage stamps and if you are a philatelist, you will study them in detail.
The earliest American flags flew in the 1770's. The stamp series includes Washington's Cruiser's Flag with its green liberty tree and the Navy Jack with its rattlesnake and the famous words, "Don't Tread on Me." It includes the Rhode Island flag with 13 golden stars with a blue anchor and the word "Hope," the blue and white Liberty Flag of Charleston and the red white and blue striped Grand Union Flag, flown by the patriots of Boston. The flags of this era were designed when America was fight¬ing for separation from England and several of them show the British Union Jack tucked in one corner. Several others show 13 stars representing the 13 original colonies.
In 1777, the Continental Congress decided on one flag design to represent the new American nation. We have the official record of the decision. "Resolved, That the Flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." The records on who designed this flag are uncertain. But in 1870, William J. Canby presented a lot of likely evidence gathered from his friends and family. At the age of 11, William was told part of the story from his grandmother Betsy Ross, then age 84.
In 1776 Betsy was a young seamstress of Philadelphia and George Ross, her husband's uncle, was one of the patriots who signed the Declaration of Independence. She told how in June she was visited by George Washington and a committee bringing a design of 13 stripes and 13 six pointed stars. She was asked to copy it and sew a flag. Betsy suggested that five pointed stars would be better and the committee agreed to this change. Many friends and relatives who were alive at the time bear out this story, but it is not accepted as definite historic proof. There is proof, however, that Betsy definitely was an official flagmaker. She sewed the flags for the Pennsylvania navy. And most likely her busy fingers used needle and thread to sew pieces of red, white and blue cloth into the very first American flag.
Some people doubt Betsy's story because of Francis Hopkinson, a member of a Continental Congress who also was there to sign the Declaration. Hopkinson was a Philadelphia lawyer and a gifted artist. He claimed that he designed the first flag but the evidence is somewhat vague. In any case, he made no claim to actually sewing the first flag. It could be that Hopkinson sketched the design that the flag committee took to the house of Betsy Ross, the seamstress who made it.