Really, no one has written this book at . Onelisa would say no, no has done it. So i feel incredibly privileged to be the one to get to write this book, and i do not know if that wouldve happened without lease early on, and now michelle and the whole betsy ross house staff. And for all of you for coming out on such a chilly day. I do appreciate that. I also want to thank some other folks, the museum that is hosting the exhibit on betsy in october has been incredibly supportive and really assisted in the resorts along the way, so i want to thank linda eaton, the curator of textiles, her intern, and another who have been instrument oh. And then there are librarians illy, probably too many to mention, but the folks at the Historical Society of pennsylvania, who tolerated my steady presence in the reading room. And lastly i have to thank the families of betsy ross. Betsy ross came from a large family, as i mentioned in it as i will mention, and her family has been incredibly supportive and welcoming to me hashis project unfolded. I want to thank nancy conrad, kent buhler, ron lord, and everybody have met through betsys family for really being so welcoming and supportive. What i thought i would do with our time today is four things. I thought i would talk a little bit about how i came to write the book. I thought i would explain why i think it is that the full story not yet ross has been written. I want to explain a little bit about how i went about recovering her story, and i want to say a word or two about what i found in the book. My first book is called the needles eye, and i got interested in that because i was studying a down maker, a gown maker. I was interested in knowing how she supported herself without access to male resources, and wnowing she was a dowgo maker, i went to see what i can find about women in the republic, and i found that it only were there very few books in that subject, but few on women in Skilled Trades at all. I wanted to rewrite the story of artisans in early america because most of what we know but the early American Craft come from trades that men practice, and most of what we know about womens work comes through studies of housewife or he, so i was interested in kind of looking at women in skills trades and wound up arguing that that is an important sector of the early American Economy that gets overlooked as we sort of have to think through the myth of the colonial good wife. I have a little riff about the early good wife and how popular imagination helps us think about Early Historical women. The colonialout is barbie, one of my favorite artifacts in American History, and that i talk about betsy ross. I talk about betsy ross because as many people here will know, betsy ross was an upholsterer. She worked for 60 years in philadelphia. She made mattresses, curtains, tassels, friends, fabricated flags of course, but i whole range of goods that decorated philadelphia interiors in that period. But in the legend, she is recast as a simple seamstress. In my first book, i write about why that might be. What is it about women making furniture that is so hard to reconcile with popular historical imagination . That is really where this book began to try to understand that phenomenon. As many of you know, the legend of betsy ross really focuses on this one moment in june or may eve of, just on the independence, and i want to share with you the legend as it comes down in the affidavits that were collected later by the family in case some of you are not familiar with all of those pieces. In the legend, george washington, george ross, and Robert Morris county betsys shop in the spring of 1776. They have in hand a design for a flag. In that design, the stars of a have in mind have six points, and so the heart of the family story is how betsy looks at that design, fold a piece of paper just so incidents it and chose morrisgton and ross and mauric that making five pointed stars is really more efficient. That is the heart of the story. As the legend continues, they agree that is a good design and take it back to congress as the proof and it becomes the first slide. What i set out to do in the book is to investigate the elements of that story, and i will come back around to that in a little bit. But the book really tries to say whatever happened on that spring 76, betsy ross has a much bigger story to tell. As some of you may know, that legend became launched into Popular Culture in 1870 when betsys grandson, william canby, gave a talk to the Historical Society of pennsylvania. Set up by his aunt, clarissa, betsys daughter, in the late 1850s. She was on the eve of and moved to the midwest where her daughter had settled, and before she left, she wanted to get the stories down, so she asked can be to record her telling of her mothers story of the making of the first slide. Intervenes, not much attention is given to the story, but in the late 1860s, canby provides the stories of that legend of a family story, gives his talk in the 1870s Historical Society and really loves his Family History international history. The story is really embraced by the culture. As many of you know, this is the era that women are seeking suffrage, and the betsy ross story provides a way for americans to put a woman in the pantheon of founders, which they are eager to do. It is the eve of the centennial, without suggesting that women should be political in any particular way. Sy gets is when bett recast because the story gets domesticated. As many of you know in the 1890s, the nation is then looking at the colombian centennial, and this is the period that attention turns to the house. Our street is undergoing a lot of change, the house begins to be threatened with demolition, and thanks to a very famous painting by charles weisgerber, the betsy ross scene is imagined again, the culture embraces the story, it still solve a lot of cultural problems, and the nation is very interested in celebrating its origins in this period. And so a movement takes off to save the betsy ross house, millions of americans are involved in that by making contributions to the effort, and the house is saved. This is the birth of all the kits that you will see in all the house inside the house, the tea sets as betsy becomes a folk legend. As that happens, the 20th century sees a lot of effort, ross, then of betsy legend. So why is it that here we are in 2010 and no one has yet recovered the story of her life . I have a couple of explanations for that. One is that betsy of course left no paper is. S. When she died in 1836, she was not famous for making any flag. Her obituary makes no reference to her work as a flag maker, so her family has no papers. There are not letters or diaries to survive to have her story, so part of the reason it has not been written is that there is no of papers to support a project so easily. The other has to do with the history of womens history. Some people here will know that womens history took off as a field of inquiry in the 1970s and 1980s in the wake of the modern womens movement. Quarterperiod, the last between century, as feminist historians were trying to establish careers in this new field, the story of betsy ross fornot safe really scholarly inquiry. Scholars had to take on projects that they got to be more substantive, and it really was not until now that it becomes safe with womens history now with the academy and very well established it is ok to start of someonehe life like betsy ross who many people in the 20th century came to believe was almost fictional. The last element of a story that really needs to be said is the powerful of these databases. A lot of academics will note there are things like early american imprints that publishes imprinted america before 1800. Early american newspapers. Thousands of american newspapers. Even 10 years ago i think i could not have lived long enough to write this book, but now with these tools at my disposal, it is possible to do. So that is pretty much how i went about doing it. I also as i began to explore the life of betsy ross got drawn into much larger stories about her family and about the context of philadelphia during this period. Betsy ross as some people know was one of 17 children born to her parents. Not all survived to adulthood, but although siblings give me a lot of room to move as i try to recover the story of betsy ross, and she was very close to her sisters, so starting to tease out their stories really helped me put her in a much larger context. I also went through the affidavits that were left behind and followed out every little line. Remembrances with that she was fond of tomatoes. That sent me off on a query on a what can i learn about tomatoes and 18thcentury philadelphia. She preferred one sort of snuff over the other. So that sent me off into the world of snuff. Following each of those tidbits was part of the strategy. I also try to go through the philadelphia archives and really look at every organization with which she might have any relationship at all, trying to find the Family History there. Betsy was raised in the quaker faith and spent a lot of time looking at quaker records along the way. Her third husband, John Claypool, was a joiner. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and other reform organizations, so i searched out their story through those kinds of records, and then even things like one of my favorites, the society for masters ofof poor ships, their widows and children. Obviously an organization formed before acronyms were invented. [laughter] to see what kind of things were done to support tha betsys daughters. A couple marry ship captains, or his wifejoins and daughter should anything happen to him at sea, which of course it does. Look through these family stories. I thought what i would do is tell you one of them to give you a sense of what those stories intimate id how began with the family of betsy ross. Betsy, as i mentioned, had several sisters. People who know little but about betsy ross tend to know that she loved when she married john ross in 1773. In a quaker faith, you were not supposed to marry the bottom of the faith, so for eloping and marrying a man outside the faith, she was disowned by the quaker faith. People tend to make a lot of this because they came through the headstrong, romantic woman. They crossed the river in marion new jersey and it is such a nice story. One of the things i find early on in the research is that when betsy was disowned for having married outside the faith, her parents were poor before. She had four older sisters, all of who married outside of unity. Her older sister, deborah, reconciled with the community of faith through some set procedures that were in place at that time. If you did anything really in violation of the quaker discipline as it was called, a team of records would come to your home and talk with you error of fairways, and if you express a sincere regret and went through a disciplinary rosses, then you could be so return. Betsy went through that process. She had two sisters below deborah, susannah and mary, who also married outside of unity or in marys case, had an illegitimate child. In those two sisters cases, they sort of drugs that deliberative process out for over a year. That is very unusual. More typically the whole process unfolds after a few months. A month after month, susannah would delay. She would tell the members of her faith who came to treat with her as the phrase is that she had not really decided or she is not sure she is enough, and she would say lets talk again in a month, lets talk again in a month. Finally she decides she will accept her disciplines for the error of her ways, but then she puts off coming back to the month after month after month. So in the end, it is more than a year that unfolds. All of that is resolved and really in a matter of days between the resolution of the those twossion about girls, betsys older sister, susannah, or sarah, also comes before the quaker faith for a breach of discipline. See you have to wonder at this point what her parents are thinking to have this constant conversation with their community of faith. When betsy eloped, the same thing happened. A congregation or the meeting comes to her to talk about her error, and betsy, unlike any of thatisters, cuts conversation short. She said we really dont need to go through a lot about. Im not interested in repairing this relationship. I am going to go ahead and join his church. So the thing that i see from matt is a certain decisiveness about betsy ross. Some of you know she was married three times, and each of those courtships were also very brave. As many of you know, the myersbriggs typology. She is very decisive, she knew what she wanted to do, and she has strong opinions about those things. Her estrangement from her community of faith at the time of her first marriage persisted until the quaker meeting was founded in the 1780s, and i think what really appealed to betsy ross about that is that took away to summon as a practice itself. They said members of a religion should not sit in judgment of one another. That gives me another tiny insight into her personality, really. And so what i say in the book is that i think she was headstrong, doggedly loyal and practical, shrewd. I think she likes a good joke, but that her own sense of humor was more subtle, and more than anything else, her choices in life also suggest a steely resolve, perhaps a smidgen of oxidants. That is the personality of betsy ross that i feel like ive are covered in the book. So just to share with you briefly a little but about the trajectory of her life that i explored and then maybe in a question and answer period u. S. Can ask if you have particular questions about this. Betsy ross began a 60year career in the upholstery trade in the 1760s when she joined the upholstery shop of john webster right here on art street. Meetis where she would john ross. They married and started their own business on chestnut street. But then john ross died after they were only married for two that see aing widow. This is the season of the first like story. I think i will leave to you to read in the book the ins and outs of how the legend holds up, is that if you take those family affidavits and really read them line by line and look at each element of the story, certain elements are very easy to confirm any archival record, and really very much true. Other elements cannot have been true. For instance in the latter case, it cannot have been a committee of congress as the family remembers that came to her home in the spring 1776 because george ross, who is a member of that contingent that she members coming, had not yet been elected to congress. So that is an example of the kind of thing that comes out in that does notemory hold up. We all know as our own family stories that its parent stopping stooge children and they tell things to children, certain elements become a little muddy. Betsys on Coulter Meritage on was deeply involved in the betsysthe dell uncle remarriage remember somebody coming to her shop in the spring of 1776 because the little kids were very concerned about the defense of the delaware and the british arriving into littlefield. So as i imagine that spring of 1776, washington was in the city, it wasnt philadelphia gathering of things that he would need for the military, including pants that he ordered philadelphia upholsterer. George ross makes perfect sense as a visitor as was robert ofris, who was a Member Congress but also deeply involved in the defense of pennsylvania. So as you work through those of it does ring true, and the part of it means the most to me as a historian of women and work is that cutting of the store. When i think about that moment, i am seeing a young woman, widowed in her 20s, worried about the future. The partnership she had with her fellow upholsterer husband was not to be. Over that time, the concert will Congress Begins to build a maybe. Women in philadelphia are getting contracts for the flags of those ships are going to need. So when i think about that moment and the cutting of that is a young i see artisan seeking a government contract. First government contractor, not the first, she is saying to washington, the sixpointed stars, that was fine, but im telling you if you need a lot of these fast, fivepointed stars are more efficient to me. So i see a little glance of her skill and insight in that story, and that to me is what is most important about that story. Remarry on then to after hurley would owe it to a man named joseph aspirin. He was a mariner and spent time at sea because he was a privateer. He was at sea. During the occupation of philadelphia, he gets captured at the old mill prison in england and died there, so betsy by 1781 is without a second time. A man comes back who was also theisoned with ashburn at old mill named John Claypool. He comes back to betsys house and tells her as was the custom in that period, i was with your husband when he died, he was a gallant man, it was a brave death. He would come back and tell her about being with ashburn at the time of his death. They marry they began courting within a matter of months, and they marry. Finally this is the partnership that gives her the family she had been seeking. She had two children with ashburn, one of whom survive, and five additional daughters with claypool. And now she has the family that is going to support that upholstery trade. John claypool was trained as a tanner, but never really worked in that trade. He eventually landed a job at the Customs Service and striking ships that come in from all over the world, make sure they are whole, having the manifests that they ought to. That is his job at the federal government. If you look at newspapers from cityeriod or a directory, they will say John Claypool, upholsterer, and all of that is betsy ross. They had a flourishing trade all through the end of the 18th ontury, and right here 1800, john has a stroke. In this period, it is really before banks are invented, so there is not much of a safety net. It is hard to save for a rainy day, and the family fortunes begin to decline. In the early 19th century, they begin to accept charity from the free quaker meeting, who began to donate charity, tuition for the kids, so they are in some need of funds, but this is also being period and this is one of the great surprises of the betsys great flag making or the document tatian of her great flag making. In these runup to the war of 1812, she had an almost monopoly on orders. They compare a man named ted cox who was the purveyor of public supplies in philadelphia in this period, and he and John Claypool knew what each other through their volunteerism in the ends of any abolition society. In the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Another flag maker, mary and her mother, and their departure from opening forves an betsy ross and her daughter, clarissa, who has moved home, ironically, from baltimore, to join her mother here in the flag making business. The war ofunup to 1812, betsy ross its a really staggering order for flags, and this is what is most moving and exciting to me. In one order, she is asked to all dispatch with for the arsenal. These are large flags. I cap late in the book thousands of stitches that this would have required, so betsy, her daughter, her nieces, the whole family would be set to work to deliver these flags. There is one order for a set of six flights that are 18 by 22, flag unfolds to large ash is almost as her house. They sent soliciting work to the navy board because they needed to keep those naval tracks contracts coming. It was the core of their business, although they did continue to make domestic interior, the venetian blinds, curtains. For the end of her life, betsys eyesight declined. She quit working in the late 1820s and moved on up to abington where she had a daughter who had settled up there. Girlsa time, the abington could not take care of her anymore, and that the move back to philadelphia where she moved in with her daughter, jane. I just thought i would read you one passage from the book and closing today. That the to stay with her daughters family. Eventually her health failed. Too feeble to move easily, she day in her the armchair and her daughter, jane living room. After walken but she was simply content to keep the good book near her. He heavy volume would lie for hours on open on her lap. Sometimes her grandchildren would sit on a stool near her feet and read to her from it. Now a little old with years, rim of claypools storytelling days were behind her. Hardly a wrinkle march or smooth her smooth marked white face. And there always seem to shine a soft smile. She continued to wear the accoutrements of her trade, the civil hook at her way from where her silver scissors still dangled, but she was no longer able to so. To sew. Thank you. [applause] so i would love to take any questions that anybody has. Were there any surprises in your research . The timesurprised all in my research. Affect that, i was for a surprise to find so much documentation about flag making so much later. Naturally i entered the project thinking i would be recovering evidence of flag making during the revolution itself, but i was i excited to find myself so interested in the war of 1812. Another thread of the story that i was surprised to find myself became about but very engaged in is a thread of discussion about Mental Health in the 18th century. John ross has some hints of the record there was a description of him at the end of his life that said he was writing a vast quantity of simplest material. So there are some hints that john ross was not altogether of sound mind at his death, and what interested me to that sarah, wass mother, committed to an asylum for lunacy when john was a teenager. So johns family struggled with sarahs Mental Health, john struggled with Mental Health, and then betsy had a cousin who was really raised with her more like a sister named rebecca who her lifehe end of describes herself as having gone lunatic and seems to fear today we would call it a persecution complex. She seems to see people all around her who are conspiring against her. I am interested in the history of Mental Health, so to see that any the 18th century was sort of surprising to me. So the family stories let me in a lot of different directions. That is the duty of biography is you have to follow the story wherever it goes. I got taken to a lot of interesting places. Lisa. I was found that with aspirin, i could never find information about him. Have you uncovered anything new . Josep ashbourne, i cannot find any clear reference to the ashbourne family on the eastern seaboard of the u. S. , so i just dont know. I think at some point as these genealogical databases become richer, i bet that story gets assault, and i do know that there is an ashbourne road up in abington, and i kind of wonder if some deeper digging up there might yield something, but i found no evidence in the papers of context with the ashbourne family. He is a free agent loading a seat. In him being a mirror, i do not know that he was born in pennsylvania. He couldve come to the city from a most anywhere, so he does remain something of a puzzle. I know this is not a book about flag history, but is there any insight into how this circle of stars get connected to betsy ross . That is another excellent question. The family never makes that claim, and i think that is very important to note. The family anecdotes, when they talk about the stars, they say that betsys critique was of course about the six points versus five, but that also in the sketch brought to her, the arrangement is the regular, and that betsy recommends that they be somehow arranged in line or in a circle or something. So the family does not insist on a circular arrangement. As near as i can figure, that element of the first flag had its stars and circles interview story sometime around the 1850s or 1860s, and then i think the two stories are grafted together, that the early flag must have been arranged that way, betsys made the flag, it must be the thing, but i have not found the first time that that claim is made that she arranged the stars in a circle. Yeah. Why would she have known how to make a fivepointed star . Another excellent question. I speculate some about that in the book because it is quite the parlor trick, and those of you who work for the betsy ross house could probably do it, but i try to do it a hundred times. It is hard. So a couple of things come to mind. One is that john ross was a member of the masonic lodge, and betsy and john did do at least a little work for the lodge, and in masonic symbolism, the fivepointed star has meaning, so it could be that they had occasion to make templates for masonic goods and she learned that way. Theres also a pennsylvania german tradition of paper cutting. Some people, curators, have suggested to me that perhaps through her contacts in the city came to know some of the techniques of paper cutting. And linda eaton suggests that this is a period that geometry is becoming an increasingly important part of the school curriculum, so perhaps betsy would have come to know andthing about folds stars and symmetry through her education at school. Those are the three theories that i have so far, but it is interesting. Maybe any flag maker they wouldve talked to could have done the same thing. I do not know why she had the particular little gimmick at hand. It is quite the thing, as limited at the top of the talk. I spent some time with the family, and they can all do it. They were all raised to do it. It is very much a part of betsys descendents tradition that they all learn how to do it. Lovely. Anything else . Thank you all for braving a chilly day, and im happy to hang around and chat more and sign some books. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] you are watching American History tv, 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter cspanhistory for information on our schedule, upcoming programs, and to keep up with the latest history news. All weekend long, American History tv is joining our Cable Partners to showcase the history of st. Louis, missouri. To learn more about the cities on our 2014 tour, visit cspan localcontent. We continue now with our look at the history with a look at st. Louis. This is American History tv on cspan3. And 2014, st. Louis is yearsating 220250 50 of the city. They put together an exhibit called 250 in 250. It is 50 people, 50 places, 50 images, 50 moments, and 50 objects. Public storage shares with us selections from one of the event thes five selections. We are standing in front of the 50 people selection. This section of the exhibit is the first one of visitors see when they come in to the exhibit space. Mosteople section was the the one people fought hardest for. Everybody had a certain person they really had in mind. I think setting it up was the a strongeople was starting point to talk about moments and that kind of thing. Some of them are st. Louis native, born and raised here and it exciting things here. Some are people who came to st. Louis and exciting things from somewhere else, and some are heople who later on