Philadelphia Antiques & Art Show 2017

flag scholars feel it was a grand hoax, fabricated by Canby for his own interests. Nothing survives in the collective writings of the three men, for example, nor in records of their words and deeds, which are fairly extensive. As with most things, reality is perhaps somewhere in the middle ground, with some of the details based on fact and some on fiction, made up, misinterpreted, or imagined from family accounts. The first time that a star configuration gets attached to the Ross story appears to have occurred during the last decade of the 19th century. In 1892, Charles Weisgerber painted a nine- by-twelve-foot rendition of the fabled meeting between Betsy andGeorgeWashington, inwhich there is a flagwith a circular wreath. Shortly afterwards, in 1898, Betsy’s granddaughter and great-granddaughter began to make flags in the East Wing of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, selling them to tourists while disseminating the family folk tale (fig. 7). In that same year, Weisgerber and a “group of concerned citizens” sought to preserve Betsy’s former Philadelphia residence at 239 Arch Street, where she lived at the time the flag would have been sewed. Weisgerber moved his family into the house and immediately opened to the public the room in which Betsy was said to have worked her magic. Ten-cent memberships were sold to fund renovations and donors received a small calendar, to which a cotton 13 star Betsy Ross pattern parade flag was affixed. The effects of these events caused the Ross legend to stick and the story, with the corresponding flag design, has appeared ever since in more places than one could ever hope to count. Even today, with the availability of better historical information, two of those 13 star flags at the presidential inauguration bore the Betsy Ross design. The Federal Period & The Antebellum…Or Perhaps Not? Over the years, one of the phrases that I have repeated to clients again and again is that “13 star flags are their own animal.” Because we have made them throughout our history, one has to date them by construction, as well as by various other factors, best learned with the experience of handling hundreds of examples. With many other Stars & Stripes, and variants thereof, one can at least start by considering the star count, then ruling less obvious factors in or out to nail down the period of manufacture. There are areas of flag collecting, however, in which this becomes fairly tricky. This is especially true of what I call “the low star counts,” which, by my definition, include anything with 30 stars or fewer (pre-1850). These are the flags in which collectors, dealers, auction houses, museums, and other experts, seem to make consistent errors. Even some of the leading collectors have had great trouble with proper identification of material in this period. Why? Perhaps the primary reason is this: If you were to group all of the flags together that have a star count between 14 and 30, the vast majority of this total were not produced during the period when we had the corresponding number of states. In this way they are not unlike 13 star flags. I have explained some of the many instances inwhich they weremade after we had 13 states, but why were other, later star counts made “out-of-period,” so-to-speak? The are several reasons. One, some star counts were included on later flags, made to celebrate anniversaries of statehood or to otherwise glorify that particular state, perhaps for its pavilion at a World’s Fair or some other patriotic event. At other times, a group or organization may have used a star count to designate when it was founded. Sometimes the makers of flags simply ignored the official or otherwise accurate star count, in lieu of practical or decorative considerations. Continued use of 13 star flags by the U.S. Navy, after we no longer had 13 states, has previously been mentioned, with the purpose of keeping the star count for better visibility. More than 95% of the Navy’s “small boat ensigns,” as they were called, seem to have bore the 13 star count, at least fromthemid-19th century through the 19-teens. Other low counts, however, are known on Navy flags that date to the mid-19th century specifically, including 16 and 20 stars, and it is suspected that other counts were probably employed, such as 12, 15, and perhaps 24 stars. The Navy seems to have preferred various low counts where the number could be laid out easily, either in staggered rows or a neat rectangle. Flags with 16 stars are of particular interest to this discussion, because, like 13 stars, their meaning in later flags may have been two-fold. When the RevolutionaryWar ended in 1783, the nation’s warships were sold to pay down federal debt. With the sale of the ships, the Continental Navy and Marines ceased to exist. In 1798, President John Adams signed a bill that officially reestablished the United W 118 W (Figure 7) 13 star flag made by Betsy Ross’s granddaughter, Rachel Albright, in 1905, in the East Wing of Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Photo courtesy Jeff R. Bridgman Antiques, Inc.