Who helped Betsy Ross make the 1st american flag?

Answer 1

There is virtually no evidence at all to support the legend that Betsy Ross crafted the first American flag.

The stories were started after her death by her family, who claimed that she told them she had been commissioned and made it entirely herself. There are records of her being paid to make flags. And curiously enough, though professional flag-making was done in colonial times by upholsterers instead of seamstresses, Ross was actually both (though it's not often mentioned in the legends). If you believe the story, then she did it all herself and even improved on the designs that were originally given her.

There is reason to believe that she didn't make it, however, and few credible historians do hold to this story. Why would nobody know about this at all until 94 years after it happened? Why was Washington still looking for a flag two years after this event supposedly took place? Another good candidate would have been Francis Hopkinson, who was not only a member of the continental congress but also a heraldist who designed the seal of the United States and the one for New Jersey.

Still, it's a nice story. President Woodrow Wilson once said about it, "Would that it were true!"

Answer 2

Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. When we view the flag, we think of liberty, freedom, pride, and Betsy Ross. The American flag flies on the moon, sits atop Mount Everest, is hurtling out in space. The flag is how America signs her name.

http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/

http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/flaglife.html

Good luck.

Answer 3

Francis Hopkinson

Legend of sewing the first flag
According to what her family members said (after her death) that she had told them, in June 1776, she received a visit from George Washington, George Ross and Robert Morris of the Continental Congress. She had met Washington through their mutual worship at Christ Church (and she had sewn buttons for him previously), and George Ross was John's uncle. Although there is no record of any such committee, the three men supposedly announced they were a "Committee of Three" (perhaps self-appointed, under the circumstances) and showed her a suggested design that was drawn up by Washington in pencil. The design had six-pointed stars, and Betsy, the family story goes, suggested five-pointed stars instead because she could make a five-pointed star in one snip. The flag was sewn by Betsy in her parlor. The flag was flown when the Declaration of Independence was read aloud at Independence Hall on July 8, 1776.

No contemporary record of this meeting was made. No "Betsy Ross flag" of thirteen stars in a circle exists from 1776 (however, there is an October 1777 account by of a flag with "stars disposed in a circle" at the surrender of Saratoga[1]). Historians have found at least 17 other flag makers in Philadelphia at the time. The Betsy Ross story is based solely on oral affidavits from her daughter and other relatives, which were made public in 1870 by her grandson, William J. Canby, in a paper read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. No primary sources of the time—letters, journals, diaries, newspaper articles, official records, or business records—have surfaced since 1870 confirming or disproving the story. The only further supporting documentation that Betsy Ross was involved in federal flag design is the Pennsylvania State Navy Board commissioning her for work in making "ships colors & c." in May 1777.

Some historians believe it was Francis Hopkinson and not Betsy Ross who designed the official "first flag" of the United States (13 red and white stripes with 13 stars on a field of blue). Hopkinson was a member of the Continental Congress, a heraldist, a designer of the Great Seal of the State of New Jersey, one of the designers of the Great Seal of the United States (which contains a blue shield with 13 diagonal red and white stripes and 13 five-pointed stars) and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence.

Answer 4

Probrably the idiots that still believe she actually did that, which she did not.

Ask the guy that believes independence day in america was actually July 4th when in reality is was the 3rd.