Betsy Ross Sews First Official Flag (Flag Day Continued)

Betsy Ross Sews First Official Flag

Hopkinson requested compensation from Congress in 1780 for his design, but Congress denied it, saying that others had worked on the project as well. Betsy Ross was commissioned by a congressional committee to sew the first official flag. Some believe she was responsible for changing the stars from being six-pointed to five-pointed, easier to make.

After Vermont and Kentucky became states in the 1790s, Congress approved adding two more stars and two more stripes to the group that represented the original 13 colonies, now states. This was the "Star Spangled Banner" of which Francis Scott Key wrote in 1814. As other states entered the Union, it became obvious that stripes could not be added continually, so in 1818 Congress reestablished the 13-stripe flag and allowed for additional stars for new states.

1818 Law Sets Final Form

The law specified that stripes should be horizontal, alternately red and white, and the union, or canton, should display 20 stars for the states then in the union. But it did not specify color shades or arrangement of the stars, and wide variation persisted. During the Civil War, gold stars were more common than white and the stars sometimes appeared in a circle. In 1912, when the stars numbered 48, standards of design were set which became even more precise when the 49th and 50th stars were added in 1959 and 1960.

The regulated design calls for seven red and six white stripes, with the red stripes at top and bottom. The union of navy blue fills the upper left quarter from the top to the lower edge of the fourth red stripe. The stars have one point up and are in nine horizontal rows. The odd-numbered rows have six stars. The even-numbered rows have five stars, centered diagonally between the stars in the longer rows.

The reason the flag is folded into a triangular shape is to symbolize the shape of the cocked hats worn by soldiers of the American Revolution.
The first time the Stars and Stripes flew in a Flag Day celebration was in Hartford, Conn., in 1861, the first summer of the Civil War. Numerous patriotic groups supported a regular nationwide observance. In the late 1800s, schools held Flag Day programs to contribute to the Americanization of immigrant children, and the observance caught on with individual communities. But it was not until 1916 that the president proclaimed a nationwide observance and not until 1949 that Congress voted for Flag Day to be a permanent holiday. It is not a "legal" holiday, however, except in Pennsylvania.

Posted by SlagleRock at June 15, 2004 12:01 AM