 Hello from the National Archives Public Programs and Education staff, Betsy Ross is portrayed by Kim Hanley, actor, historian, interpreter and reenactor from the American Historical Theater. Betsy Ross has been immortalized as an important figure in American history. There's also a legend about her. Did she design the first American flag? Most likely no, she did not. Did Betsy Ross sew a flag for the American Congress early in the struggle for American freedom from Great Britain? Yes, indeed she did. Was this flag the first stars and stripes ever made? Unfortunately, the answer to this question may never be known. But such facts and myths about Betsy Ross have been recounted by generations of Americans. Learn the inspiring story of the patriot, upholsterer and flag maker, who really was Betsy Griscombe Ross Ashburn Claybourne Claypool, portrayed by Kim Hanley. The National Archives has in its holdings records related to Betsy Ross, including artists rendering of her sewing the American flag based on a request by the Continental Congress. These images are presented in our featured docsteach docsteach.org activity associated with today's program. The docsteach comparing contrast activity feature is all about focusing on the details in the image. The docsteach slide will be shared again at the end of the program. We will take audience questions via the YouTube chat box and have a question and answer session with Betsy Ross at the end of her presentation. The chat box is monitored by National Archives staff. Please let us know where you're watching from today. All programs are brought to you from the National Archives Public Programs and Education Team and the National Archives Foundation. And now let us give a warm welcome to Betsy Ross. Greetings everybody. Can I be heard through this interesting system of technology that has been set for me? Wonderful. Well good morning to the all. My name is indeed Betsy Griscombe Ross Ashburn Claypool, but I realize that is a lot of names for thee to recount. For now let's just call me Betsy Ross because that does seem to be how history has indeed remembered me, but I was indeed born Betsy Griscombe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New Year's Day of 1752. January 1st, interestingly enough, I know folks in thy day celebrate the Yule Tide and the Christmas Tide, but in my day in being a Quaker we certainly didn't celebrate that day. What was indeed celebrated though by many was New Year's Day, the first day of the year, so there were always celebrations on the day of my birth and I suppose it was all to do to not get quite ahead about myself to think that those celebrations were for me, but no, they were for the birth of the New Year, not for the birth of some little girl in Philadelphia. I was indeed born of the Quaker Faith, my family were the Grissoms, my father was Samuel Grissom, a carpenter. He helped build the Philadelphia State House, now known as Independence Hall, and the Christ Church where I had to worship for a little while, many other wonderful buildings in Philadelphia. So I came from a line of folks who were good at working with their hands. As a Quaker, a member of the Religious Society of Friends, there are three testimonies of our faith that guide my life and my spirit through its course. First is that there are no intermediaries between me and my maker. Second, that all people are equal, whether they are men or women or Negroes or whites or Indians, that we are all equal in the eyes of that Creator that made us all. And that because we are created by a greater good, we shouldn't try to aggrandize ourselves above others. So as they will see from my dress, I'm quite plain in my manner and my clothing. My costume is just a very basic plain linen of, by the way, this is a non-slave manufactured shade of blue, I find that very important, and simple fabrics. Also, my surroundings are very simple. I don't have any fancy things on my walls, but what I do as for a living does require me to have a hand with fancy stitching and fancy work. So I am aware of what my fashion is. I'll get to that in a minute. Now, at about the age of seven, I had the opportunity to do something that many girls in my day did not have. I went to school. In part, this was because I was a quaker and of the religious society friends and being that they thought all children were by grace of God equal that they should have the opportunity to get an education. Now, I will say in my education, I learned the basic things, reading and writing and arithmetic. I will say though there were still some inequalities about it. While boys were able to learn such complicated and interesting things as Latin and Greek and or astronomy and philosophy, we girls ended up having a needle thrust into our hands for another several hours worth of sewing in school. It was all right. Sewing actually would become very, very useful to me. But however, I will say most girls certainly did already know how to sew by the time they were getting to school. We'd had needles thrust into our hands from as soon as we could hold them. So I grew up going to school in Philadelphia with many of my other Quaker friends. And I went for about seven years until I had another unique opportunity. As a member of the religious society friends and being that we all considered boys and girls to be equal, girls could have as much use in society as a boy. And therefore, it was thought that we could have jobs and we should be trained for good jobs. That was very important. I was able to enter an apprenticeship and I took on an apprenticeship to the Webster family's upholstery shop. That meant that I would be making things such as bed hangings and window curtains and sofa cushions. Can you think of upholstered things that might be in your own house? Does they have a sofa that they can sit on that is fabric covered and soft? Or does they have curtains in their windows that they can close from the sun or open up to let the light in? Does they have bed hangings around their beds to draw clothes in the winter and keep the warm at night? Or if they doesn't have those, perhaps they might have sheer curtains that they can put around their beds at night to keep the bugs out. Some of them might have curtains and many of them don't? Well, I suppose times do change. Perhaps their windows are a little better than mine and the bugs don't get in. And the cold can stay out. So another upholstered thing, does they have any paper, wall paper in their homes? Walls covered in pretty fabrics. That is also something that the upholsterer would handle. So I was to join this apprenticeship for some seven years, where I would learn not just the techniques of being an upholsterer, how to make cushions and bed hangings and window curtains. I would learn the business of being an upholsterer, which meant I also had to price out rooms and estimate costs. Estimating costs meant that I had to be very good at my numbers. So arithmetic does count, literally. If one is to upholster a wall, put wall paper on it, one needs to know how much wall paper to buy. So one needs to measure the wall from the bottom to the top and from the side to the side. And then factoring how wide that wall paper will be. And so know how many strips of the paper one will need to cover the wall. And that's the simplest part of upholstery. Once people start cutting curves into sofa cushions, it gets even more complicated knowing how much fabric to order. So also I had to learn how to maintain customer relations and keep careful accounts. These were all things that I had to learn as an apprentice upholsterer. But certainly I was good enough with my needle. It was all the other management and business associated things that I had to learn. Now, when I was 21, my apprenticeship would be officially over, but I wasn't going to go into trade alone. I had met a young man there by the name of John Ross. And John Ross and I did indeed fall in love. And we were married. And my family and the Philadelphia Yearly Quaker meeting were horrified. John Ross, they see he was not a quaker. He was an Anglican. So we ended up having to worship the Christ Church in Philadelphia because I was read out of meeting. That meant that I could no longer participate in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting as a member. I was read out. There were consequences to that. That meant that I no longer had a vote within my religious community. That's another thing we quite the ladies had. We had a vote. But, well, I didn't really mind at the time. I was young. I was in love. And I was ready to start my business. Well, things were going along quite well. We were married in 1773. But that itself was a very difficult year. Because they remember the T Act was passed in 1773. And I do know that they can find out much more about that through the National Archives and their carefully preserved records on the T action. Now, the T Act caused quite an uproar. And it caused a collection of men folk in our towns to gather up and enforce boycotts. Boycotts have been enforced before. But now we were going to boycott British tea. My husband joined the militia and also helped enforce the boycotts. And, well, we would be called patriots for that. Patriots were folks who supported the American cause for representation within the British Parliament. You see, the problem was taxation without representation. This T Act was a tax faced upon us by a government that we had no say in. That's one thing if one has a say in one's own government. But when one doesn't, that's called taxation without representation. And it was unfair. So, well, the T Act happened and folks in Boston threw tea into the harbor. And then for the next year, many more folks would be engaging in tea protests. And my husband and I had clearly made our determination that we were for the American side. The other side would have been the folks who were for King George and the Crown and Parliament and unquestionable loyalty to the King and Great Britain. I don't know if there was a right or a wrong to all of it. I just know what I believed. And I was led by my maker to have a certain opinion about how I could proceed in this government. Well, things were going along again. Rather contentiously, but we were surviving and certainly maintaining our postory business. We even had a wonderful commission from the Tule family for when one of their daughters was married. And she had an entire suite of her home decorated by my husband and I. But then the year turned from 1775 to 1776. During 1775, a Congress had been convened in Philadelphia. Boston was still under siege by the Britons after the destruction of the tea in the harbor. And General Washington had been sent up there with an army to help liberate the city. Oh, long, long story. But it still felt so far away away from us in Philadelphia. But in the new year 1776, my husband turned ill and he died. That left me a young widow. A young widow in very uncertain times, mind the ever our relationship with our parent country was becoming ever more agronomious. The folks in Congress had all disbanded to go home and form state governments and right constitutions. And here I was a widow alone in Philadelphia, trying to maintain a business not during such uncertain times. By July 4th of 1776, there was a new motion in Congress to have a declaration of independence prepared and signed. Virginia resolution was passed that these United colonies are to be now called the United States of America. That we were declaring independence from Great Britain. My goodness, that was a very big change. I still was widowed. I'm still trying to maintain my business. And now many things were changing. A little later in the year, I got a knock on the door. It was my late husband's uncle George Ross. And I said, well, Uncle George, how are they? Can I invite the interfere couple's coffee? Not tea. He says, well, Betsy, I have an important job for them. It's a secret. I said, oh, certainly Uncle George, come on in. Let's discuss it here in the front parlor. He said, no, no, Betsy. If anybody's been to my house, they will know that my front of my house was where there was a workshop with a nice big bow window for everybody walking by to look in. I wanted them to look in these years so that they could see that I was an industry as a bolsterer and that they could even see what I was working on and how fine my work was and what kind of fabrics I had available. But he said, no, no, Betsy, this is a secret business. We can't have folks peeking in on us. So brought them to the back of the house. Now, my late husband's uncle George Ross was indeed a member of that Congress. He had signed that Declaration of Independence. And he says, Betsy, I need you to make something for a committee that I'm on with the Congress. He was on one of the committees that was responsible for procuring things for Washington and the troops. And he showed me a picture. He says, Betsy, I need you to make me this. Now, this is sort of flipped. Let's see if I can find one that's not fitting. There we go. I need you to make a banner that looks like this. I said, oh, Uncle George, that's very nice. So what does he need it for? He says, well, it's to be the new banner of the United States of America. I said, oh, Uncle George, that's very nice. He says, can you tell me a little bit more about him? He says, well, it is to be 13 stripes alternating red and white, the union of which shall be a blue field with 13 white stars representing a new constellation. Oh, this is very well, Uncle George. Now, what's this to be for? What does he need it used for? He says, well, for a ship, Betsy. And I said, oh, well, that's probably going to be, oh, goodness, at least seven by five feet, maybe nine by six feet. He says, oh, yes, that's a good ship-sized flag. I said, well, that's going to take me some time, Uncle George. Now, in the picture that he showed me, pardon me for disappearing that, he showed me this picture that had six pointed stars upon it. I said, can you tell me a little bit more about the specifics of his drawing, Uncle George? He says, well, Francis Hopkinson in Congress has codified this whole thing. I said, Francis Hopkinson, I know him. He's that congressional representative from New Jersey. He worships at the Christ Church. He plays the organ. He has a lovely voice. He writes songs. He's such a creative fellow. He says, yes, yes, yes. But Francis Hopkinson codified all of this. And he drew it for me with these six points on the stars. I said, well, if there are to be stars under George, do they need to have six points? He says, I really, I don't know. I said, well, heraldically speaking, Uncle George, the star has no specific points in heraldry. The Raoulsbury indeed does have six points, and that is George Washington's personal battle standard. The mullet has five points. There are other stars with seven, 12, what about 13 points on them? He says, well, all that sounds rather difficult. Are not six pointed stars the most easy to cut and sew? And I said, no, Uncle George, if I can make the a five pointed star upon this banner, will that help thee? It will certainly help me and save me considerable time in the stitching. So I proceeded to show him how I can take a perfectly nice, this is an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper. And I folded it thus for him. I'm trying to do this right in front of you. So you will see that I'm not engaging in any sleight of hand. Here we are. Let's fold two folds, three folds, one more little fold. Now it looks a lot like one of Benjamin Franklin's kites. And I'm never left a frame of the picture. And I'm going to cut Diagon down. And I show him how I could make a nice five pointed star with one snip of my scissors. Does he see that there? One, two, three, four, five points. Pin that up for me. I need a pin in my hat. There's usually always one up here. Yeah, I'll just take one from my dress. We use pins to hold ourselves together. So perfectly nice five pointed star. And I said, now this will save me some time in the stitching on George because I have to go not around, not just around the star points 13 times each, but I have to do both sides of the banner. He says, well, that's very well, Betsy, send me the bill when you're done. And I did. I proceeded to make him the ship's colors. And I sent him the bill. It was 14 pounds, 12 shillings, three pence. And as I was making this thing, I started to have a better understanding of what I was looking at erotically. I'm going to go back a little bit for the in the in the building of this thing. Because I was working on it. I began to understand the heraldry. We started out here. This is where we get the blue and white. It's Andrews cross. And here we have George's cross. These two crosses were developed by heralds way back at a time called the early middle ages to indicate saints. Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland, George the patron saint of England, and the two countries used these banners to identify themselves. Moving along a few years, we had King Henry the eighth, his three children in succession after him ruled Edward who had no children, Mary who had no children, and Elizabeth who had no children. Queen Elizabeth was a great man. When she died, she had no children, no more heirs to the English crown. Oh, what they do with the English crown, they gave it to a cousin. He was the King of Scotland. James the sixth of Scotland became James the first of England. And he put the two banners together. You see there's still Andrews cross and George's cross, Scotland and England. A few years later, we had many ships on colonial business, American colonies, Indian colonies, and this banner was developed. This is called Queen Anne's red ensign. The red ensign flew over all the colonial properties here in America, including the state house where which my father helped build. This red ensign then, when George Washington went up to the Battle of Boston, he included 13 red and white stripes to it. This was called the grand union flag of the 13 United colonies, great Britain in America. That's a lot of words, we just call it the grand union flag. Then with our independence, we added those stars into the blue field, removing the king's colors from it. Don't need to see them anymore. And this is how we got to our stars and stripes, which I continue to make this very day. And I did get married again to a man named Ashburn. And after he passed away, I married another man named Claypool. And so that's how it became Fretzy, Grissom, Ross, Ashburn, Claypool, flag maker of the stars and stripes. Well, that was a very quick description of my life and my events, but I'm sure he has questions for me that he would like to engage in. So please, if he has them, ask away. Well, thank you so much. That was just fascinating information about your history and really how involved your whole family was in our early republic. So thank you for sharing that great information, Betsy Ross. We have some wonderful viewers with us today. We have someone from Detroit, and we have a question someone sent in. The question is, did you really make this flag? They say, or was it an exaggeration? I think maybe they mean did you do it by yourself or did you have help? Oh, well, I actually did the first flags that I made for Congress, I did do by myself. I definitely made flags for the Congress. I billed them. I received pay for them. There is no question about my work as a flag maker and for government, for official government resources. As to what specific flags I've made, I've made many flags. I've made stars and stripes. I've made chips colors. I've made ensigns for battle. Even if George Washington needed one of his personal battles standards with the Six Pointed Rowellsburgs upon them, I'd make that. I make stores. Many women were put to work making things for the war effort. We also would make things such as bedding, mattresses for the soldiers to carry, cartridge boxes for them to hold their weapons and their musket balls and cartridges in. Indeed, the musket balls and cartridges themselves we would make, and we got paid. We got paid by Congress for our work. There were a lot of women at this work and making things as far as the stars and stripes and weapons. Yes, I did make flags. I'm not sure if I answered the question completely. No, that's great to know. Thank you. It's so interesting to hear about women's support of that effort and the cause for independence in all different ways. So we have another question about the design of the flag. When did they put the stars in a circle? I have a banner here to show you. It will take up my entire frame here. This has the stars in a circle, but it's just the stars on the blue field. The first time we actually see this is in a painting of George Washington at the Battle of Princeton by a wonderful Philadelphia artist named Charles Wilson Peele. Mr. Peele was at the Battle of Princeton, and this idea of stars and stripes and battle ensigns is quite ancient, and different companies would have different flags. Well, I'm not sure what company flag might have had those stars in a circle, but that is this lone banner appears behind George Washington in that painting at the Battle of Princeton that Charles Wilson Peele made. So that's the first time we've seen that. Now, when I was first presented to make this, and if Francis Hopkinson ever asks for a flag made, it will always, again, I apologize that this is lit, it will always look like this with six pointed stars in the blue field and the 13 stripes red and white. This is the Hopkinson flag. He is credited with the codification and design of this. However, I believe history has much more to do with the actual design than Hopkinson, but he did codify it all. So fairly to him, he gets credit for that in the conquests. And another question about the flag, specifically about the material of the flag. What was the flag made of? Oh, wonderful question. The flag was primarily made of wool. Wool and linen are the primary things that I use to make flags. Very important reason why cotton is, while it is made, while we do have the raw materials here in America, the refining of cotton is very difficult, very expensive, and we don't do much of the production here in America. Linen comes from the flax plant, and lots of ladies indeed were donating or giving up some of their garden space to flax plants. It was a patriotic ideal to do so, to grow flax. And that could be cut down, processed, and made into one of the strongest fibers. Flax, linen, is the only fiber that actually gets stronger when wet. Indeed, they will often see ladies about campfires. They specifically need and want to have a linen apron that they soak with water because the linen absorbs that water, it's onto the water, and it becomes a fire retardant if any sparks or embers fly up at their aprons. It's actually very helpful and safe for them to wear a wet linen apron around a fire. So linen is a great fabric that we make here in America. The other one is wool. This is made from sheep, and this is also a renewable resource here in America. Indeed, sheep were largely spared from the dinner table. They were spared from the mutton pot because of the use that they had of their wool. So again, this was an industry that was many folks in their homes or any shepherd or shepherdess who had sheep would keep their sheep for the wool that it could provide. And wool can be spun into a very light fabric called bunting. Now we can make this here, or some bunting was also processed overseas, but either way, wool was the fiber that generally we use to make the big parts of the flag, the stripes, the stars, and even the blue field. Thank you. I am so impressed. It sounds like there are so many different parts of your job and what went into making the flag. You needed to know the mathematics of it. You needed to know the science behind what materials would hold up. Really interesting. And we have a few more questions about the flag if you have a few more moments. Why do I have such time as it needs? Wonderful. So we have someone asking what happens when states are added to the union. We now have 50 stars for 50 states. Oh my goodness. That is quite a lot. Now what about the number of stripes? No, I can answer that. When in 1794 by that year, two more states joined our union. They signed the Constitution. That was Ohio and Kentucky, I believe. Anyway, with these two states, they needed representation on the flag. So a 15-star and 15-striped flag was approved by Congress. We were supposed to add a new star and a new stripe. This would be the flag that would be an activity during yet another war, the second war for American independence or Mr. Madison's war, or what he now calls the war of 1812. This flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes was a very important flag as it took us through another war. And indeed, a song called, now called the Star Spangled Banner, formerly known as the Defensive Corps of Henry, was written about this flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes. Not the specific one, but a much bigger one. Anyway, however, after the war, there were even more states in our union. Another goodness, I'm not sure how many states there were by 18 and 18, but the Congress determined that it was going to get very busy with the stripes if we kept adding a new stripe. So they reduced the stripes to the original 13 and just kept adding new stars as new states joined on to our Constitution in our union. So that's how we have 13 stripes maintaining, but a new star will be added with every state to the union. That's really interesting. We have a question too. If you ever travel, they said from the mention of the ship's flags, it made them wonder if you ever sailed on one of the big boats, maybe the tall ships. Have you left the colonies? No, I have never left the colonies. The most I've sailed is from Philadelphia to New Jersey and back again. That's not a very long sail. That's just across the Delaware River. Indeed, the first time I went across, I was but a child when I was originally born actually in New Jersey. So I came to Philadelphia. Then there would be times when we'd go visit a family in New Jersey. It was an easy crossing. And when I had to elope to marry John Ross, I eloped to New Jersey and married him there. Well, thank you. So I think I'm going to ask our final question for the day. And this is the question we always end on. What advice do you, as Betsy Ross, have for young people today? Oh, goodness. I would say they need to work very, very hard. Anything that they want to do to become good at it. But once they do become good at it, they need to be diligent in their work. They need to be honorable in their business dealings. Quite frankly, one of the reasons I suggested to the Congress that they have five pointed stars is that, well, it would save me time. But I also would not charge them for that money for that time that I wouldn't be using. So I tried to be a very ethical business person. If I do the work, I expect that folks should reward me in kind for it. But if I don't do work, I don't ask for money for something I haven't done. So ethical business practices. And also, oh, that was the other part of the question was working together. And who did I make the flag alone? I remember that from the first one. I did indeed make my first flag alone. But that does not mean that everybody made flags alone. I'd like to talk about one group of folks that I do know made possibly the first flag that flew in a battle. It was over Fort Stanwykes in New York now called Fort Skyler. And they were under siege. The siege began at the end of July, the beginning of August of 1777. The flag resolution officially stating that the flag would be 13 stripes red and white, etc. This flag was passed, sorry, on June 14th of 1777, shortly before that fort went under siege. But to be under siege means that nobody can get in or get out. Nothing can come in or come out. So whatever they had in the fort, when they were besieged by the British was all they would have. Now they must have had the instructions for this flag or the resolution for the flag. And when it came time to have a battle at that fort to finally liberated from the British, it was Americans inside the fort, British outside the fort, British not letting anyone come in around the fort. It was determined that they wanted a fly flag. So they banded together and they did it together. Soldiers from the fort donated their shirts, ladies, officers, wives in the fort who often had fashionable red petticoats. They donated their red petticoats. And the head officer at the fort, General Swarthout, he donated, well I shouldn't say donated, he did Bill Congress eventually, but he gave his blue uniform for the blue field. So together they made something of the red, white, and blue stars and stripes to fly over that fort during the battle of Fort Stanwyx or the siege of Fort Stanwyx. And so working together they were able to create this thing to inspire them to liberty. So I hope those are two lessons to take away. Work very hard and work together for something that they believes and that is more important and greater, that it will supply for the greater good. Well thank you so much for that inspiring advice and sharing your story with us today. It was just so wonderful to learn and for answering all these great questions we have. So we'll end today with one last look at that Docs Teach educational activity related to Betsy Ross. And join us to meet Amelia Earhart next month. Aviation pioneer and champion for women in the workforce on Thursday August 18th at 11 a.m. Eastern time. Thank you all for participating in our program today.