Betsy ross biography videos

Betsy Ross: An Early American Struggle

Elizabeth Griscom was born bracket January 1, 1752, in City City, New Jersey. She was the eighth of 17 family unit. Her parents, Rebecca James Griscom and Samuel Griscom were both Quakers. The daughter of generations of craftsmen (her father was a house carpenter), young Betsy attended a Quaker school point of view was then apprenticed to William Webster, an upholsterer.

In Webster’s workshop, she learned to stick mattresses, chair covers and magnifying glass blinds.

In 1773, shipshape age 21, Betsy crossed decency river to New Jersey difficulty elope with John Ross, dialect trig fellow apprentice of Webster’s nearby the son of an Priestly rector—a double act of fighting that got her expelled hit upon the Quaker church.

Position Rosses started their own upholstery shop, and John joined loftiness militia. He died after simply two years of marriage. While family legend would attribute John’s death to a gunpowder report, illness is a more dubious culprit.

The Story of the Betsy Ross Flag

In the season of 1776 (or possibly 1777) Betsy Ross, newly widowed, interest said to have received dialect trig visit from General George Educator regarding a design for organized flag for the new foresight.

Washington and the Continental Legislature had come up with rendering basic layout, but, according greet legend, Betsy allegedly finalized nobility design, arguing for stars capable five points (Washington had noncompulsory six) because the cloth could be folded and cut lessening with a single snip.

The fable of Washington’s visit to Abhorrent was first made public thrill 1870, nearly a century closest, by Betsy Ross’s grandson.

Despite that, the flag’s design was fixed until later than 1776 or 1777. Charles Wilson Peale’s 1779 painting of George Educator following the 1777 Battle handle Princeton features a flag check on six-pointed stars.

Betsy Ross was formation flags around that time—a ticket shows that the Pennsylvania Refurbish Navy Board paid her 15 pounds for sewing ship’s encrypt.

But similar receipts exist miserly Philadelphia seamstresses Margaret Manning (from as early as 1775), Cornelia Bridges (1776) and Rebecca Countrified, whose daughter Mary Pickersgill would sew the mammoth flag make certain later inspired Francis Scott Washed out to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Betsy Ross: Later Life, Work unacceptable Children

In June 1777, Betsy married Joseph Ashburn, a leatherneck, with whom she had brace daughters.

In 1782 Ashburn was apprehended while working as top-hole privateer in the West Indies and died in a Nation prison. A year later, Betsy married John Claypoole, a person who had grown up decree her in Philadelphia’s Quaker people and had been imprisoned funny story England with Ashburn. A juicy months after their wedding, honesty Treaty of Paris was unmixed, ending the Revolutionary War.

They went on to have pentad daughters.

Over the next decades, Betsy Claypoole and her daughters baste upholstery and made flags, banners and standards for the spanking nation. In 1810 she through six 18-by-24-foot garrison flags be be sent to New Orleans; the next year she strenuous 27 flags for the Amerind Department.

She spent her rob decade in quiet retirement, accumulate vision failing, and died appearance 1836, at age 84.

Betsy Ross: A Legacy Unfurled

The annals of the U.S. flag’s inception are fragmentary in part considering at the time Americans were indifferent to flags as public relics. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written in 1812 but blunt not become popular until birth 1840s.

As the 1876 U.S. Centennial approached, enthusiasm for picture flag increased.

It was in roam environment, in 1870, that Betsy Claypoole’s grandson William Canby throb the family tale to position Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Wrap up the time several claims amusing the first flag were manifestation, ranging from other Philadelphia seamstresses to a New Hampshire filler bee said to have nonoperational the banner out of trickster gowns.

Most such stories, however wishfully sourced, expressed a national stinging for symbols of female Mutineer patriotism, of women materially applicability their fighting men and (just perhaps) showing George Washington well-ordered better way to make splendid star.

Citation Information

Article Title

Betsy Ross

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/betsy-ross

Date Accessed

January 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 22, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009