It is September 14th, and on September 14th,
1814, Francis Scott Key woke up in the early morning as the sun was rising to reveal
the still flying flag over Fort Mchenry, and that sight spurred him to begin writing a poem
that is now well known to all americans called the Star-Spangled Banner. Now you might have
a vision in your head over what that banner looked like that morning, but it might surprise
you to find out that it was somewhat different than the flag we see today. For example, it had
only 15 stars, but also you might not realize that unlike an American flag today which has 13
stripes, the flag flying over Fort Mchenry had 15 stripes. The history of the flag of the United
States of America deserves to be remembered. There's a good chance that if asked who
designed the first American flag a person might answer Betsy Ross. That story however is likely
incorrect, and the identity of the actual first flag designer or maker is unclear. It's not even
clear how Betsy's legend really began. In 1870, Ross's grandson William Canby gave a speech to
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in which he outlined the now familiar story. A committee
from Congress arrived at Betsy's Philadelphia shop in the summer of 1776 consisting of Colonel
George Ross, uncle to Betsy's deceased husband, Robert Morris, and George Washington
himself and hired Ross to produce a flag. According to Canby, Betsy altered the design
given to her. “Of the flag in the initial drawing,” she said “it was square, and that a
flag should be one third longer than its width. That the stars were scattered promiscuously
over the field,” and she said ”they should be in lines or in some adopted form as a
circle or a star. And that the stars were six-pointed in the drawing” and she
said, “they should be five-pointed.” The story is not without merit, we know Betsy made
flags including some for the military, and her family had close relations with Morris. We know
Washington purchased goods from her and that he was in Philadelphia at the time. However there is
no evidence that there was a committee to design or obtain a flag in 1776, and Washington himself
could not have been a part of one in 1776 as he was not a member of the Continental Congress
at the time. None of the three people on the committee mentioned anything about it. Finally,
the 1782 Seal supposedly based on the original flag, used stars with six points not five. And
even if she did there is no evidence of what it looked like, or that it was the traditional
Betsy Ross flag with a circle of stars. In fact, the idea of a national flag so common
today wasn't on the minds of 18th century leaders. Flags initially were used primarily, if
not exclusively, as a military standard meant to identify units. They were not national
in the sense that there was a single design that represented the state, but differed greatly,
and represented a single unit or a leader. Flying a flag to identify a country of origin
began with the use of maritime flags with possibly the oldest being the 17th century
states flag of the Dutch Republic. It was as a maritime flag that the English flag took shape
from combining Saint George's cross of England with Saint Andrews cross of Scotland in 1606, and
combined with the cross of Saint Patrick in 1801. Continental forces first flew the so-called
Grand Union Flag or Continental Colors during the revolution. It was first flown in December
1775 by John Paul Jones on the Alfred, the largest ship in the small American squadron. The naval
Ensign was necessary to identify ships at sea. It's not certain who produced it, but it may have
been Margaret Manny who charged the Alfred for the creation of an Ensign around the same time. The
Grand Union flag had 13 stripes to represent the 13 colonies, but had the British Union Jack in
its canton. American ships also briefly flew the Green Tree Flag, a white flag with a green tree at
its center, and the line, An Appeal to Heaven. The use of stripes in the American Flag may have its
origins in the flag of the Sons of Liberty. There were two flags associated with them, one with
nine vertical stripes, four white and five red, and another largely used by American merchantmen
with 13 horizontal stripes. A 13 striped Grand Union flag was raised on January 1st, 1776 at
Washington's orders in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Grand Union flag, ironically, happened to
be identical to a 1701 flag flown by the East India Company. Stripes on early flags and
regimental flags were not always red and white, some were yellow and black, silver and blue,
blue and red, and some were even green. Interestingly, images depicting a naval
flag with red white and blue stripes exist, apparently stemming from an unclear message by
Arthur Lee, one of the American commissioners in France. In 1778 he wrote that, “a ship's colors
should be white red and blue alternately to 13, and in the upper angle next to the
staff, a blue field with 13 stars.” The stars similarly have myths about them. The
American five-pointed star was understood in European Heraldry to be the five-pointed rowell
of a knight's spur, even sometimes including a hole in the center, while stars had at least six
points. George Washington's coat of arms contained the rowells, but there is no certain evidence that
this influenced the design of the national flag. Evidence for the circular design is scarce,
one contemporary version remains in the background of a painting of Washington. It wasn't
until 1777 that there is any documentation that Congress addressed the issue of a flag, and
likely they were concerned primarily with the use aboard ships. The decision is sandwiched between
decisions of the Marine Committee. The resolution itself is simple, “Resolved that the flag of the
13 United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white, that the Union be 13 stars, white in a
blue field representing a new constellation.” Eleven days earlier a Native American Nation had
requested an American flag and sent payment of wampum which possibly prompted the
resolution. Likely congress had been considering the issue already. A committee to
design a seal which included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson may also have
considered a flag. There are however, no surviving records of how the flag was designed. Francis
Hopkinson, an artist and designer did request payment from Congress for the design of a flag,
but Congress refused as he had not been the only one to work on the project. Hopkinson called the
flag, The Great Naval Flag of the United States. The 1777 resolution did not state how the
stars were to be arranged, and various designs proliferated. Pierre L’Enfant, the designer of
the city of Washington designed one in an oval, while many had the stars in rows of four,
five, four stars, or three, two, three, two, three. By 1795 debate raged over what to do with
the flag. Vermont and Kentucky had been admitted to the Union and both wished for representation.
Including them was a matter of significant debate, some called the debate, a consummate piece of
frivolity, while others argued that the new states should not be offended, and that adding
to the flag would serve as a reminder to the world that the country was growing. Many however
were aghast at the cost, with one member claiming that “It would cost the government sixty
dollars for every ship to get a new flag.” “If we alter the flag,” argued another “we
may go adding and altering at this rate for a hundred years to come. It is very likely before
15 years elapsed we shall consist of 20 states. The flag ought to be permanent.” Despite the
debate congress voted that the flag be changed. “From and after the first day of May Anno Domini
1795” read the act, “the flag of the United States be 15 stripes with alternate red and white. That
the Union be 15 stars, white in a blue field.” The most obvious consequence of the 1795 Act was
the implication that each new state added both a stripe and a star to the flag, although no further
alterations were authorized. That's why Francis Scott Key saw a 15 star, 15 stripe flag over Fort
Mchenry though there were 18 states in the Union. The idea predated 1814. Historian doers that
during the revolution a captured American privateer captured by the British flew a flag with
only 12 stripes, and when pressed he claimed that since the British had taken New York, Congress
had a province less, and that it was Congress's orders to cut off a stripe so there should be
no more stripes than provinces. Hand-made flags, though unofficial, could include further stars.
The 1799 Revenue Cutters flag was designed to have the arms of the United States, an eagle with
a shield displayed in dark blue on a white canton. The Final Flag Act enacted on April 4, 1818
finally brought about the system we know now. “That from and after the 4th of July next,
the flag of the United States be 13 horizontal stripes, alternate red and white. That the
union be 20 stars, white in a blue field.” It added that a new star be added for each new
state, but the star was not officially added until the fourth day of July next succeeding such
admission. The design was left to Captain Samuel C Reed, a naval hero of the War of 1812. It was him
who suggested returning to 13 stripes, that it was obvious that continually adding stripes would
become unwieldy. He also suggested that the flag on land have its stars formed into a larger star,
the so-called Great Luminary. Naval flags were to have their stars in rows. It was a flag with a
Great Luminary that first flew on April 13, 1818 which was hoisted over the Capital. The Luminary
was popular from 1818 to around the 1860s. Still in 1818 there were no strict definitions
of how to arrange the stars. In 1857 Admiral George Preble described flags in the harbor.
“Majority had the stars in five horizontal rows of six stars each. Most of the foreign vessels
had them strewn over the union. Some had one larger star formed of 13 smaller stars, others
had them in a lozenge, a diamond or a circle. Others were even more creative with them, shaped
in anchors or the letters U.S.” It was a desire for standardization in the navy and the advent
of mass production which would lead to the firm uniformity of later designs, but many continued
to hand design flags with different patterns. Throughout the 19th century a plethora of
regimental flag designs were made to reflect the national flag in creative ways. The Civil War and
the years preceding it saw a number of unofficial flags designs that held only the stars of either
the Union or the Confederacy, or states that allowed slavery versus ones that didn't. This
included a flag in Charleston flown in 1856 which correctly divined the future confederacy's
15 states, and possibly the 1860 Hayes Arctic Expedition flag which had only 18 stars. Samuel
Morris suggested a shared flag with the canton diagonal split, with one side holding stars
from the north, and the other side the south. Due to the 1818 Act, the country dutifully
altered its design as new flags entered the Union. However they did so so quickly that some states
did not get a flag with only their own star added. 1818 had the 20 star flag, 1819 the 21, and
1820 saw the addition of Maine and Alabama. The 24 star flag lasted from 1822 after the
admittance of Missouri to 1836 when Arkansas was added. It was replaced the next year with the
addition of Michigan. Between 1837 and 1890 the flag added one star at a time as states were
added, but five states were admitted in 1889 leading to the 43-star 1890 version. 44, 45, and
46 star flags were produced between 1892 and 1912. From 1912 to 1958 there was only the 48 star flag
representing the contiguous United States. Alaska became a state on January 3rd 1859, and a 49 star
flag was instituted that July. Hawaii followed in August leading to the 1960 design which remains
today. The flag has also gone by a variety of names it's possibly the Marquis de Lafayette
who first called it the Stars and Stripes, as americans were more likely to call it the Stripes
and Stars. In the early years it was Captain Steven Driver of Massachusetts who is credited
for dubbing his own 24 star flag Old Glory. The 20th century had seen a flurry of
new flag rules as well such as the 1942 Flag Code which instituted rules written by
the National Flag Conference held in 1923, and has been adjusted several times since. It also saw the standardization of the design and
production, first laid out in 1912 for the 48 star flag and executive orders by president Taft which
laid out the configuration of the stars and the width of the stripes. The exact colors, today
called Old Glory Red, Old Glory Blue and White were not standardized until 1934. Since
then rules have governed its appearance. It has been more than 245 years since the Flag
Act of 1777, the first act of congress to offer a design for the flag that would become the
flag of the United States of America, and the flag has changed since and of course might
change again, there's still a chance that we might add more states, and therefore more stars. In
fact, that flag's already probably been designed. Mary Rebke of Annin Flagmakers told the website
Marketplace in 2017 that Congress essentially starts designing the new flag as soon as
the old one is made. So the star pattern for the 51 star flag has probably been known
since the late 1950s. The flag that inspired Francis Scott Key 208 years ago today might have
changed with time, but it still includes the same basic elements, those broad stripes, and
bright stars, so gallantly streaming. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the
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