Why is betsy ross famous

At some point after the turn of the 19th century, John developed a physical disability, possibly relating to earlier war injuries or a stroke. He died in Betsy continued her upholstery and flag-making business with the help of her daughter Clarissa. According to her descendants, although her vision was failing rapidly, Betsy continued to take the long carriage ride to the Free Quaker Meetinghouse in the city every week. By , Betsy was completely blind. With family present, Betsy Ross died peacefully in her sleep on January 30, She was 84 years old.

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Perhaps because of this experience, she was chosen and requested to make the first flag ever made in the state of Connecticut—which she did, assisted by Mrs. This fact is officially recorded. Betsy Ross will not go away because she gives women a part in the revolutionary narrative without disrupting its heroic outlines.

If Paul Revere is a stand-in for the common man, Betsy represents the common woman. Her story is democratic.

Unlike the allegorical Liberty, she was a flesh and blood woman—an ordinary woman—who by applying her own ingenuity and skill gave our nation its flag. Or so we would like to believe. But Betsy became famous, not because of what she did or did not do in the s, but because her story embodied nineteenth-century ideas about the place of women. As told by Canby, her story was patriotic yet safe from the rough and tumble of politics.

The flag-veneration movement simultaneously elevated and absorbed the stories William Canby and others gathered. In their original form, these stories were fragments in a collective oral history of the American Revolution, a largely local enterprise in which groups gathered relics into museums and historical societies and preserved stories about ordinary people, stories that had both the strengths and the weaknesses of their origins in a participatory public culture.

In comparison with these early stories, the Betsy Ross who emerged in the late nineteenth century seems less individual, more iconic, more a product of triumphal nationalism than of a proud and locally grounded republic. Whether she can sustain her fame for another century is uncertain. Their responses to the first question were almost exactly the same as in New Hampshire ten years before, but when I gave them the second question, there was an audible gasp in the room.

The students had no trouble identifying the Founding Fathers, but they had a hard time coming up with the name of anyone who was not a president, general, or statesman. In the end Paul Revere came in first and Betsy Ross dropped to seventh, though the answers were so scattered, it is hard to determine significance. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich teaches history at Harvard University. Before we move forward, it is a good time to look back on the history of Commonplace and its place in digital humanities over the last two decades.

We are excited to share some Commonplace news! New update! As of May 26, , we are not accepting any more applications for the editorial position or the editorial board. Thank you so much. In the early republic, social media had its own crucial importance, although what the media employed was not the tweet, but little bits of pasteboard.

In the crested buttes and slot canyons of the Internet that comprise the academic blogosphere, pseudonymity has been controversial. One of the most persistent myths in American history is the idea that the election of Andrew Jackson in […]. Well, of course he was. American historical narratives have always told us so, and recent prize-winning tomes that agree on […]. Every recent presidential election cycle, about the time a campaign goes negative, newspapers run a story like the one in the […].

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Skip to content. Share Article:. Oral tradition, nationalism, and the invention of history. Bobble-head purchased at the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia. When turned on, it plays the National Anthem. Photo courtesy of the author.

Betsy Ross pincushion Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Illustrated by facsimiles of pen and ink drawings by H. Rosa New York, Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

Charles H. An example of the veneration of Betsy Ross in the late nineteenth century. Flag and Seal, Mrs. Betsy Ross the Author. Greenberg Before we move forward, it is a good time to look back on the history of Commonplace and its place in digital humanities over the last two decades. Greenberg We are excited to share some Commonplace news! Little In the crested buttes and slot canyons of the Internet that comprise the academic blogosphere, pseudonymity has been controversial. Andrew W.

Robertson One of the most persistent myths in American history is the idea that the election of Andrew Jackson in […]. Donald J. Ross learned how to make and repair many items, including curtains, tablecloths, bedcovers, and rugs. She became a very skilled seamstress and upholsterer. While working for Webster, she fell in love with another apprentice named John Ross.

Her decision to marry John Ross caused her to split from her family and the Quaker religion when she was only years-old. Betsy and John Ross started their own upholstery business in Philadelphia and became members of Christ Church. Their business was successful, and it is reported that they even made bed hangings for George Washington in John Ross was also a member of the Pennsylvania militia.

After three years of marriage, John Ross passed away. At years-old, Betsy Ross became a widow. She continued to run the upholstery business and worked on uniforms, tents, and flags for the Continental Army.

Washington and the two other members of the Continental Congress brought a rough sketch of a flag with thirteen red and white stripes and thirteen six-pointed stars. Ross suggested that the six-pointed stars be changed to five-pointed stars because they were easier to make.

The men agreed to change the design. Ross is said to have made the first American flag shortly after that meeting. Ross continued working as a seamstress and upholsterer for many years. She married her second husband, Joseph Ashburn on June 15, They had two daughters, but their first daughter died at nine months old.

Ashburn was a merchant sailor during the Revolution and a British warship captured his ship in He was sent to prison and he died in May of of an unknown illness.

Later that year, a fellow prisoner named John Claypoole visited Ross to tell her that Ashburn passed away. Claypoole and Ross became friends and got married a year later.