Betsy Ross

American tradeswoman

• Born: January 1, 1752
• Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Died: January 30, 1836
• Place of death: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Using an original idea presented to her by George Washington, Betsy Ross is reputed to have designed and sewn the first official American flag. She was a lifelong seamstress and upholsterer, and she conducted her own upholstery business until she died at age eighty-four.

Early Life

Betsy Ross was born Elizabeth “Betsy” Griscom, the eighth of seventeen children of Samuel and Rebecca Griscom and part of the fourth generation of Griscoms in America. The Griscoms lived on Mulberry Street (now Arch Street), near Fourth Street, and Samuel was a well-known carpenter.

Little is known of Betsy Griscom’s early life or appearance. She is sometimes described as having blue eyes and auburn hair, but the accuracy of these accounts cannot be confirmed. She attended a Quaker school run by Rebecca Jones and later studied at the Friends Public School on Fourth Street, chartered by William Penn as a public institution but run by Quakers. Her parents, members of the Philadelphia Society of Friends, preferred that she receive a Quaker education.

After her basic education, in keeping with the custom of the time, Griscom was apprenticed to learn a trade. Although many young women learned housekeeping, she studied upholstery in the shop of William Webster, where she applied her seamstress skills to making furniture. It was at Webster’s shop that Griscom met John Ross, a fellow apprentice and a native Philadelphian. They fell in love and wished to marry but could not do so because John’s father, Eneas Ross, was a minister of the Episcopal Church, and Quakers strongly discouraged marrying outside the faith. However, the young couple determined to marry despite the lack of parental approval, and on November 4, 1773, they took a boat across the Delaware to Hugg’s Tavern, in Gloucester, New Jersey, where they were married by a justice of the peace; Betsy was twenty-one years of age, John was twenty-two.

Because Ross would not apologize for the marriage and repent, as Quaker doctrine required, the monthly meeting of Friends for the Northern District of Philadelphia declared that she was considered disunited from religious fellowship with the Quakers. The Rosses began to worship in the Anglican faith, at Christ Church, where John’s father was rector. The couple’s pew, number twelve, was immediately adjacent to the one occupied by George and Martha Washington when they were in Philadelphia.

Life’s Work

In 1775, John and Betsy Ross left Webster’s shop to start their own upholstery business on Arch Street, near where Betsy was raised. Their business prospered, and the Rosses developed reputations as excellent practitioners of their craft. Apparently, both Rosses were patriots, and John joined the Philadelphia militia to fight in the struggle against the British. He was fatally injured in a gunpowder explosion while guarding a munitions warehouse on the docks. He was buried at Christ Church on January 21, 1776, and Betsy, a widow at the age of twenty-four, was left to manage the shop on her own, which she did with some success.

According to the longstanding legends regarding Ross and the American flag, in late May or early June of 1776, General George Washington, Colonel George Ross (the uncle of Betsy’s late husband), and Robert Morris called on Ross at her upholstery shop and requested that she make a flag based on a rough sketch by Washington. The flag was originally designed with six-pointed stars, but Ross proposed that they use five-pointed stars, as these were easier and quicker to make. The legend also states that she changed the flag shape from square to rectangular so that the flag would produce a better rippling effect when seen at a distance.

The specifics of this story cannot be confirmed, as no contemporary accounts provide a definitive description of how the stars and stripes version of the American flag was designed or altered by Ross or any other individual. The first recorded appearance of the Ross legend occurred in 1870, when one of Ross’s grandsons, William J. Canby, published a story about his grandmother telling him, when he was eleven years old, about her work on the flag.

For many years, the legend was accepted and became part of American history, but since at least the early twentieth century, the story has been the subject of much debate among historians. The debate was renewed in 1952, when the U.S. Post Office issued a three-cent stamp honoring the one-hundredth anniversary of Ross’s birth. Since the 1970’s, some feminists have scorned the Ross story as a typical effort to marginalize women’s many achievements in the revolution into one narrow, traditionally female field: sewing. The historical accuracy of the account will probably never be conclusively confirmed, but several key facts about the flag are known.

For example, on June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution that the “flag of the United States be thirteen stripes alternate red and white, that the Union be thirteen stars white in a blue field representing a new constellation.” Nothing more is mentioned about the origination of the design or any person involved with the design or manufacture, but this design conforms to that described in the Ross legend. Because of the ongoing war, the announcement met with little fanfare, and it was not until August and September that the press began reporting on the resolution.

The official design remained a matter of some confusion for a long time, and even America’s own ambassadors in foreign countries were often not aware of the newly adopted format. Also, individual units of the armed forces frequently created their own distinctive banners, which varied widely from state to state and even from city to city, so that nothing like a uniform adoption and display of the American flag was seen for the duration of the Revolutionary War. However, the stars and stripes design attributed to Washington and Ross is seen in various paintings contemporary to the period, especially those of Charles Willson Peale and Colonel John Trumbull, the latter a painter known for the accuracy of his images of uniforms and insignia. It should also be noted that no other person contemporary with the events ever claimed to have made the first American flag, and there are numerous sworn affidavits by Ross’s grandchildren and nieces individually confirming the accuracy of the original story.

Ross remarried on June 15, 1777, at the Gloria Dei Church in Philadelphia. Her husband, Joseph Ashburn, was a sea captain and privateer against the British and someone Ross had known since before her first marriage. Some accounts hold that she was engaged to Ashburn and broke the engagement to marry John Ross, but this remains unconfirmed. She continued to operate her upholstery shop and manufacture flags for the United States government and the Pennsylvania navy. Also, she gave birth to her first two children, both daughters, before Ashburn was captured by the British and sent to Old Mill Prison in Plymouth, England. He died there on March 3, 1782.

In August of 1782, John Claypoole, an American marine lieutenant, was released from Old Mill Prison, where he had befriended Ashburn. He returned to Philadelphia and informed Betsy of the death of her husband, which had long been suspected, as he had not been heard from in more than a year. On May 8, 1783, at the age of thirty-one, Betsy Ross Ashburn married Claypoole; her husband was seven months younger than she. She continued to operate her upholstery shop with Claypoole as her new partner and bore five children with him, all daughters. During this time she joined the Society of Free Quakers, a more liberal sect of the Society of Friends than that which had excommunicated her years earlier.

John Claypoole died on August 3, 1817, and Betsy (Ross) Claypoole continued to run the upholstery shop until her death on January 30, 1836, at the age of eighty-four. Her daughters and granddaughters ran the family upholstery shop until 1857. Her grave is located next to the reputed location of her original shop at 239 Arch Street in Philadelphia.

Significance

Though widely accepted for many years as a matter of historical fact, it is impossible to state with precision whether the legend involving Betsy Ross and the first American flag is true. Some historians note that the legend very well could be true, based on its conformance to known information, while others ascribe it to sheer self-promotion on the part of Ross’s descendants.

In either case, it is easy to see why such a legend was so attractive to late nineteenth century U.S. society: It provided an excellent example of what was called “Republican motherhood.” The legendary Ross contributed to the quest for American independence but did so by using her skills as a seamstress, skills traditionally considered appropriate for young women. By originating an impressive flag that symbolized the United States, she demonstrated one way women could contribute to the nation’s democratic process without overstepping the time period’s bounds of propriety or becoming directly involved in governmental affairs.

Conspicuously absent from the legend are the details of her three marriages, her owning and operating a business throughout her life, and other nontraditional facts. In many ways, these hidden aspects of her life, and how her story has been manipulated through time to serve the agendas of various generations of historians, may be Ross’s most important contribution to the history of the United States as a nation and as an ideal.

Bibliography

“Betsy Ross Stamp Causes Controversy.” Life (February 18, 1952): 57-58. A good overview of the 1952 stamp controversy. This fairly short article includes an illustration of the stamp and a capsule history of Ross, as well as examples of how the legend had been questioned by various writers and historians.

Corcoran, Mike. For Which It Stands: An Anecdotal Biography of the American Flag. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. A pocket-size book of facts about the American flag. Corcoran debunks the Betsy Ross legend, explaining that she neither designed nor sewed the first flag.

Mayer, Jane. Betsy Ross and the Flag. New York: Random House, 1952. One of several children’s books about Ross, this brief volume is typical of the mainstream treatment the legend received in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. The writer gives a very conventional view of Ross, her first marriage, and her role in the flag design and manufacture process, all meant to appeal to young female readers.

Morris, Robert. The Truth About the Betsy Ross Story. Beach Haven, N.J.: Wynnehaven, 1982. The definitive rendering of the legend and its relation to historical fact. Morris gives ample information about Ross, the flag and its various predecessors, and contemporary historical events. He rebuts point by point various Ross detractors and provides numerous illustrations and appendices to support his belief that the flag legend is no legend but true.

Selby, Earl. “They Never Told Me This About Betsy Ross.” Collier’s (July 8, 1950): 34. One of the first articles to mention some of the more nontraditional elements of Ross’s personal life, this article was published at a time when the legend was still widely accepted as true.