The Star Spangled Banner flag has been repaired and restored and is now on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.We all learned about flags in school, so see what you remember.
1) Describe the Smithsonian's flag or, better yet, make a quick sketch of it--stars, stripes, and damage. 2) Who made the first American flag? 3) How many points on the flag's stars? 4) When were official rules first established for the appearance of the flag?
1) The tattered Smithsonian flag has 15 stars and 15 stripes (count them in the picture). One of the original stars is missing, possibly lost in the 1814 battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that became our national anthem. Our first flag had 13 stripes, red and white, and 13 white stars on a blue field. In 1791 and 1792, stars and stripes were added for the new states of Vermont and Kentucky. So the flag had 15 stars and 15 stripes until 1818. The rules changed after that. As more states joined the union, each flag had only 13 stripes but an added star for each new state. Since the Smithsonian flag was flown at the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812, it has 15 stripes and 15 stars.
2) No one has proof. Betsy Ross was a real person, a flag-maker born in Philadelphia in 1752, but no one can prove she made the first American flag. The story was publicized in 1870 by her grandson, who told it as part of his family history.
3) Five. The rule now is five points, but early flag-makers used five-pointed, six-pointed or even seven- or eight-pointed stars.
4) There were no official rules until 1912, when President William Howard Taft signed an executive order that described the size and shape and the arrangement of the stars on an official U.S. flag.
Do you examine every new piece you buy? Old desks often have secret compartments; lockets and memorial jewelry sometimes have space to put a note. But imagine finding an inscription that had been hidden for almost 150 years inside a watch that belonged to Abraham Lincoln. Doug Stiles knew that his great-great-grandfather had been a watchmaker who worked on President Lincoln's watch. Stiles found a 1906 newspaper article in which his grandfather told about putting a message in the watch. The watch was given to the Smithsonian in 1958 by Lincoln's great-grandson. When Stiles told the Smithsonian about the newspaper article, the museum decided to have a watchmaker open the watch. In front of an audience and TV cameras, he found the inscription engraved so long ago: "Jonathan Dillon, April 13- 1861 Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels on the above date." (Fort Sumter was named for Revolutionary War General Thomas Sumter, but the name of the fort was often misspelled; the first date of the attack was actually April 12.) Dillon's other inscription includes the phrase, "thank God we have a government." There was also an engraving by another watchmaker who repaired the watch in September 1864. His engraving included the name "Jeff Davis." Was that a pro-Confederate statement? We are amazed that the inscription remained secret for so long and that two watchmakers "scribbled" on the president's watch.