The American flag was not always revered as it is today. In the beginning it was an afterthought
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In the bedroom of the Betsy Ross House, a recreation of where the upholsterer worked on her most famous assignment, a tall flag with a circle of 13 stars hangs over a Chippendale side chair and stretches across the floor. During the weeks it took to complete the project in 1776, Ross probably would have knelt on the flag, stood on it, and treated it more like an everyday banner—not with the kind of reverence we would expect today.
“She wouldn’t have worried about it hitting the floor or breaking any codes,” said Lisa Moulder, director of the Ross House. “The flag had no special symbolism.”
Flags fly every 4th of July. But unlike the right to assemble or trial by jury, their role was not dictated by the founders. They would have been rare during early Independence Day celebrations. It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that the American flag became a fixture in the White House, scientists believe; it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that a federal code was established for how it should be handled and displayed; it was not until the 1960s that Congress passed a law making it illegal to “knowingly” cast “contempt” on the flag.
The flag’s evolution into a sacred national symbol and the ongoing debates surrounding it that generate so much passion and anger reflect the current events of a particular moment and the country’s transformation from a loose confederation of states into a global superpower.
‘A REFERENCE’
“The flag was really an afterthought,” says Scot Guenter, author of “The American Flag, 1777-1924” and professor emeritus of American Studies at San Jose State University. At first, Guenter says, the Continental Congress was more concerned about developing a “Great Seal” because it was needed for the papers it would issue.
Congress passed its first flag law on June 14, 1777: “Resolved, that the flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes alternating red and white; that the Union are thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation. But the flag is further peripheral at the beginning of the country.
A spokesperson for Independence Hall in Philadelphia says no records exist of an American flag being present for the signing of the Constitution in 1787, or any indication that a national flag would have been flown in what was then the United States during the next decade. now called Congress Hall. when Philadelphia was the nation’s capital. Investigators at George Washington’s home have no evidence that the flag was displayed there during his lifetime. (Volunteers there now regularly raise and lower American flags, which are sold in the gift shop as if they had “flown over Mount Vernon”).
According to the White House Historical Association, there is no precise date when the flag first had a permanent home in the presidential residence. Historical society researchers say the best guess is June 29, 1861, early in the Civil War, when President Lincoln dedicated a flagpole at the South Grounds.
The Civil War, followed by the country’s centenary in 1876, helped mythologize the flag. Americans were in the mood for a good story, and William J. Canby, grandson of Betsy Ross, had one. Speaking to the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Canby drew on family memories in telling the quiet, heroic story of Betsy Ross, who had passed away little known outside her immediate community.
“As an example of diligence, energy, and perseverance, and of humble trust in providence, in the face of all the trials, which were not a few, of her eventful life, the name of Elizabeth Claypoole (her married name at the time of her death) is worth registering for the benefit of those who should be faced in the same way,” said Canby.
LEGEND GETS MORE THAN FACT
The Ross House bills itself as “the birthplace of the American flag,” but its origins are uncertain. We don’t have a final bill. Many mention Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey congressman, but others, including Ross, may have added details – and, unlike the Declaration of Independence, we have no original artifact. Whether Ross or someone else produced the first, its final destination is unknown.
“We think it would have landed on a ship’s mast, indicating it was an American ship,” says Moulder.
Ross’s place in history also remains in doubt, even among government agencies. An essay titled “The Legend of Betsy Ross,” on the Smithsonian National Postal Museum’s website, says her story is “cloaked in both legend and fact,” with no substantial evidence of her involvement. The museum says, “While it makes for a nice story, it’s sadly most likely untrue.”
Ross, who died in 1836, left no diary or contemporary records of her whereabouts, Ross House officials acknowledge. But she was really a real person who produced several flags before and after the alleged time when she was approached by a committee that included George Washington and asked to sew a flag to represent the new country. Ross House officials have no direct evidence that Washington contacted Ross in 1776, but they note that a ledger excavated in 2015 revealed that Washington had done business with Ross and her husband and fellow upholsterer, John Ross, two years earlier .
“We know that Washington wanted the Rosses to make bedroom curtains for his home in Mount Vernon,” says Moulder. “And curtains are the kind of job Betsy would have taken.”
As the country became more nationalized and nationalistic, Ross was added to the early pantheon and the flag’s presence expanded like so much territory across the continent – to state ceremonies and buildings, sporting events, schools and private homes.
THE FLAG IS CENTRAL
In the midst of fierce labor disputes and growing fears of immigration, in 1892 Secretary of State Francis Bellamy drafted the Pledge of Allegiance. It was tied to the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landing, but also, as historian Richard White has written, spoke of “a time of intense social conflict in an increasingly diverse nation” and was intended “as a hopeful affirmation of the future of America.”
Regulations were proposed and enacted throughout the 20th century. The first national flag code was drafted in 1923 and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, with recommendations on everything from saluting the flag to wearing it. In the mid-1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower passed legislation that added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, a Cold War action that originated 20 years earlier.
“In the 1930s you had conservatives who argued that the New Deal represented slavery and that the counterpoint was freedom under God,” said Kevin M. Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton University whose books include “One Nation Under God.” published in 2015. “So there was a corporate-fueled backlash against the regulatory state and it takes on religious tones. In the fifties that is appropriated by the anti-communists.”
The burning of American flags goes back at least to the Civil War. But it wasn’t until July 1968, in response to Vietnam War protesters, that Congress passed legislation making it illegal (the Supreme Court overturned the ban in 1989) and added other restrictions against “publicly mutilating” the flag. Three months later, radical activist Abbie Hoffman was arrested for wearing a Stars and Stripes shirt, the charges later dropped on appeal.
“He showed up in the shirt for a meeting of the House Committee on Un-American Activities,” says Mark Kurlansky, author of “1968: The Year That Rocked the World,” a social history. “He just thought it would be funny.”
Last month, the Biden administration hosted a Pride Day rally on the South Lawn of the White House and hung a Pride Progress flag among American flags on the Truman balcony. Rep. Georgia Republican Mike Collins denounced the notoriety of an “alphabet cult battle flag”. Other Republicans claimed Biden officials had violated federal regulations, which require the U.S. flag to be “centered and at the highest point” when grouped with other flags. Biden defenders noted that an American flag was flying over the White House.
“The flag is so important because it helps define what we believe in. You have Democrats and Republicans trying to make sense of it,” says Guenter. “The flag may intersect with issues of gender and race and sexuality. There is so much to think about, and it reveals so much about who we are.”
