Latest / Repcolite Home Improvement Show / Liberty Bells, Colonial Front Doors, and the Real Story of Betsy Ross

Transcript

Liberty Bells, Colonial Front Doors, and the Real Story of Betsy Ross · Repcolite Home Improvement Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. It's the Fourth of
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: July weekend and you're listening to the Home in Progress
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Fourth of July Extravaganza, brought to you by Repcolite Paints
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and Benjamin Moore. Every single year I celebrate the fourth
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: on the show with a bunch of patriotic topics and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: this year is no different. And I love what I've
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: got coming up, and rather than tell you about it,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to jump right in because there's just
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: so much good stuff that I want to get to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and I want to make sure I've got time to
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: do it as well as I can. All Right, I
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: want to start this first segment with the most famous
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: broken object in American history, the Liberty Bell. Now you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: probably know exactly what the Liberty bell looks like, or
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: you can picture it, big bronze bell, long jaged crack
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: running up the side, the Liberty Bell. Right, here's the thing,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: almost everything most of us think we know about it,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit off. It's a little bit off.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So let's fix that as much of that as we
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: can anyway in this first segment. And let's start here.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Here's a question for you. What cause was the liberty
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Bell made for. You know what was the reason it
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: was made? What did people say, we need a bell
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: for this? You know what was that cause? If you
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: said the Revolution, you're wrong, that's not it at all.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: It wasn't cast to ring out independence. In fact, it
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: was ordered way back in seventeen fifty one, twenty five
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: years before the Declaration of Independence, and it was ordered
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: for the Pennsylvania State House most likely. You know, the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: cause that it was ordered for was most likely the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of Pennsylvania's original constitution, a document called the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Charter of Privileges written by William Penn back in seventeen
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: oh one. So the Liberty Bell wasn't connected to the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: revolution from its very beginning, and then once the war
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: started it didn't necessarily play that big of a role.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Now it was in the Pennsylvania State House, so that's
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a big deal. I guess. You know, that's the building
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: that we now call Independence Hall. It was there in
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: place when the Declaration of Independence was debated and adopted,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of cool. But dirt was there too.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You know, we're not celebrating dirt, So I don't know,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: it seems kind of passive. It wasn't really doing anything
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: amazing there, you know, it was just there. Also, there's
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a story that it was wrong to call people to
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. Now that
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: would be really cool if that was true. But historians,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you know, when they dig into it. Course, historians really
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: really can drag us all down when you really think
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: about it. You know, we have a lot of great
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: stories that historians you know, come around later and say, well,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: it really didn't happen, you know, because there's no evidence
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: or anything to support it at all. And that's too bad,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: because I really like the story. But it seems like
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: with you know, the bow ringing out, you know, the
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: first reading of the Declaration of Independence, seems like that
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: story is just kind of made up, didn't happen. So
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: when we equate the Liberty Bell with the revolution, we're
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: really not getting the story all that right. Okay, another
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: thing you may not know about the Liberty Bell. It
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: was a complete lemon, you know, from day one, a lemon.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: It was ordered from a foundry over in London, shipped
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: across the ocean, it got to Philadelphia. They get it
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: out of the box, they're all excited. They probably made
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: an unboxing video because that's so you know, popular. Everybody
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: loves to see things come out of the box. They
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: took all those little packets of desscont where it says
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: don't eat these and make sure you throw them away.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: They threw them away so their kids wouldn't eat them.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: And they got that bell out and they rang it
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and on that very first ring it cracked. I man,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I would love to know what that guy, you know,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the guy, the first ringer, what he felt like when
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: he rung the bell and it cracked. Well, anyway, they've
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: got this brand new, really expensive cracked bell. What are
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: you gonna do? They don't want to ship it back
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: all the way to England. You know, that's a lot
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: that's not going to be inexpensive ups back then still pricey.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: So two guys show up, and you know, they're Philadelphians
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and they're metal workers, and they say we can fix it.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Their names are John Pass and John Stowe. You probably
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: know their names from the National Treasure movie with Nick
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Cage because they're featured in there, or at least the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: bells featured in there. Anyway, they say they'll fix it,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: so they take the bell. They break it all the pieces,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: they melt it down, they cast a new bell. But
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: then when they bring that one, that one didn't sound right,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: so they melt it down again, cast it again, and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: finally that second attempt is more or less the bell
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: we know today. So it took three tries, all basically
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: starting from scratch, to get to the final bell. So
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: that's another thing you maybe didn't know. Last thing I've
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: got for you, the name Liberty bell. It's got to
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: have something to do with the founding fathers, right, it's
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: got to be the name they used. Well, it's not.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: For most of its life, it was just the State
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: House bell, or the bell and the steeple. Its just
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: one bell among many. The name liberty first shows up
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: in abolitionist circles in the eighteen thirties. People fighting to
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: end slavery looked up at that bell and they saw
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: a Bible verse from Leviticus which is engraved on it,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and that verse reads, proclaim liberty throughout all the land,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: unto all inhabitants thereof. They saw that and said, that's
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: our bell. You know, we're gonna claim that bell, and
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: they renamed it the Liberty Bell, and eventually the name stuck.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So the Liberty Bell, it's named for a fight that
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: came years and years after the revolution was over all, right,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: so that's the Liberty Bell. How much of that did
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: you know? How much was new? I don't know. I
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: thought it was a fun little story. And yeah, that's
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the first thing I've got. Now let's take a break,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: and then let's go from bells to front doors. Think
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: about what you think colonial front door colors might have been.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: And when we come back, I'll give you the real scoop.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: That's all coming up right after this. Homan Progress is
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: brought to you by repcoll Like Paints and Benjamin Moore.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: You know, people often think of paint as just another
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: line them on the project's supply list. But here's the thing.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Everything you do, every hour of prep, every stroke of
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: the brush, all comes down to the quality of the paint.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: The paint is the project. Make sure it's the best.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And we're back. You're listening to Home in Progress, the
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Home in Progress fourth of July Extravaganza. Not just Home
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: in Progress, but the extravaganza version brought to you by
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore. And as I mentioned in
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the open every year on the fourth. I love to
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: dig into topics that loosely surround you know, time periods
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: of the revolution, or are patriotic in nature, you know,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: things like that. I like to have a little bit
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: of fun. And right now I want to talk about
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: colonial front doors. And before we get to the front door,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: let's start with colonial whole houses. Okay, I didn't realize this,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: but on a lot of late seventeen hundred's New England homes,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: they were putting their money and their creativity and their
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: skill and all of that into the front of the house. Okay,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the face of the house, the side that looked out
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  Speaker 1: on the road. That side got all the good stuff.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: It got clapboard siding, it got little embellishments around the
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: windows and the doors, and it got paint. The sides
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: in the back, though they were often covered in rougher shingles,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: you know, and pretty much left alone to weather. I
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: didn't know that over the years that bear wood would
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: go from silver to gray, you know, brown whatever in
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the salt air. And nobody minded, nobody cared, because nobody
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  Speaker 1: important was looking at the back of your house or
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the sides of your house. You know, just your family,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: just your family, just your neighbors, just your friends, the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: people you have over for barbecues and stuff like that.
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  Speaker 1: But the important people, you know, the ones going by
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  Speaker 1: the front of the house, the front door people. They
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  Speaker 1: got the good show. You know, they saw the good
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: stuff as they drove by in their fancy carriages or
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: when they walked up to your front door. All right,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: So I had no idea that that was happening. That
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  Speaker 1: they put their energy and their timing in the front
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: of the house and just let the bat go. Okay,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: that's interesting, but it gets more interesting, at least to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: me now for a lot of us. When we think about,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: you know, colonial houses, we think white, right, we think
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: white colonial houses is just kind of a thing. And
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: in reality, you know, white is part of the story,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: but it's really not the whole story. You know, it's
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: not as big a part of the story of colonial
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you know, the color scheme and all of that as
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: we might think it was. In the late seventeen hundreds,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: a clapboard house might be white or off white if
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the owner had money, but it might just as easily
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: be red, brown, yellow, oachre, gray, tan, or pretty much
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  Speaker 1: just left to weather. Especially on a simpler, you know,
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  Speaker 1: rural home. You know, so the front has got fancier
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: materials on it, but it's not like it's coated with
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: amazing colors or something like that. Not In a lot
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: of cases, it's just a lot of cases just left
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  Speaker 1: to weather. But there was one place that got paint
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  Speaker 1: a great deal of the time. You know, even if
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: the house is weathering, there's one part of that front
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of the house that's getting paint, and it's the front door.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it was the place that people would put
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  Speaker 1: color so they could make a statement, you know, without
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the expense of painting the entire home. The front door
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  Speaker 1: was hugely important even back then, two hundred and fifty
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: years ago, hugely important, and it's still true today, right.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: You know, when you pull up to somebody's house or
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: drive by somebody's house, your eyes naturally go to the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: front door, you know, when you visit, that's where you
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: usually go, unless you're family and then you kind of
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: slink in through the garage. But real guests, you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: real guests go to the front door. It's the part
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  Speaker 1: of the house that usually makes the first statement to
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the world at large. And that was just as true
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty years ago as it is today,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and so you know, we fuss over them, some of
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: us do, anyway, Lots of us do. Lots of us
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: fuss over them. We want the color that we picked
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: to be just right. And that's not a new thing.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: You know, even back in colonial times that front do
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: or mattered and the color of the door mattered. Now,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: what I want to talk about for the rest of
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: the segment is some of the common front door colors
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: you know, back then. But before I do that, let's
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: quickly talk about how we even know. You know, I'm
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: going to tell you what some of the common colors were,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to tell you how we know, and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: how we know really really accurately. You know, we're not
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: just guessing, you know, we really scientifically know what colors
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: they were using, you know, two hundred and fifty years
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: ago on their front doors. Because really it's complicated. The
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: original paint is long gone, you know, it's buried under
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: twenty coats, you know, slapped on over a couple centuries.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: So how do you figure out what it used to be?
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: You can't just look at an old house and just
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: know what the color was. In seventeen fifty and you
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: can't trust an old painting of it either. There are
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: no photographs. Yeah, photographs would be easy, but we'd have
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: to wait till color. That's a problem. You can't go
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to paintings. The artists may have taken liberties with it.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: The colors and the paintings may have faded, you know,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the paint and the fate in the and the painting
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: may have faded. So how do we know what colors
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: to colonists we're using and how do we know it
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: really really accurately. Well, the answer is something called cross
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: section microscopy. And the way this works is a conservator
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: goes to the house and he finds a spot where
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the old paint survived. You know. Usually it's a protected
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: little corner behind a shutter hinge, under a piece of molding,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: something like that. When they find that spot, they take
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: a tiny sample, smaller than the head of a pen,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and then they set that chip in clear resin they
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: polish it down so they can look at it from
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the side, you know, like looking at the edge of
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: a stack of paper, and then under the microscope, every
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: single coat of paint that that house ever wore shows
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: up in its own little layer. You know, you count
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: straight down through the years, layer by layer, all the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: way to the very first coat that ever touched the wood.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And then they identify the actual pigments and match the
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: color to a standard scale while making allowances for the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: way old paint yellows and fades, and they come up
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: with the color that was original on the house. Now,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the guy who pioneered this in America is named Frank Welsh,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and he's read the paint on Independence Hall, on the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: White House, on Grand Central Terminal. He's basically saved over
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand paint samples in his career, and back in
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties, Colonial Williamsburg brought
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: him and his methods in to do the first really
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: scientific study of the paint on their historic buildings, and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: what they found turned things absolutely upside down, because for decades,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: everybody thought colonial colors. If you don't know any better,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: just guess what do you think colonial colors look like?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I kind of tipped my hand here, but most people
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: kind of assumed colonial colors were soft, muted, grayed down shades,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: you know, they were quiet, dusty. Turns out, nope, everybody
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: was wrong. The real colors, the original colors, were bolder, brighter,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: more saturated than anybody believed. The soft look people had
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: been copying was just old, faded, dirty paint. That's what
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: we were looking at, and we were assuming that was
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the real original color. Williamsburg has actually gone back and
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: repainted buildings to match what the science turned up. So
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the truth is colonials really like their color a lot
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: more than we give them credit for. Okay, so that's
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: how we can know what colors were used. Now let's
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: get into what they were. You know, what the actual
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: colors on the front doors were. You know, basically, if
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: you were to go strolling down the streets in seventeen
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: seventy five New England, what front door colors would you
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: have likely seen? And the first thing to know is
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that the front door was usually trying to do exactly,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: you know, back then, exactly what front door colors and
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: front doors are supposed to do today stand out. You know,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: even back then, the door was supposed to to pop,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: if you want to say that, you know, it was
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: supposed to catch your eye. So door colors tended to
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: run deeper and bolder than whatever was you know behind
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: them on the rest of the house. So generally speaking,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: if you were walking through a New England town in
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the late seventeen hundreds, these are the kinds of front
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: door colors you'd likely run into. And first off, let's
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: start in the dirt. You know, there was a whole
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: family of deep red browns that came from iron in
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the soil, the same literal stuff that makes rust red.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: One of these common ones was called Spanish brown. It
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: was a dull, brick reddish brown dirt cheap because it
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: literally came from the dirt, and it was a really
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: common color to find on doors or on the trim
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: around the doors. Green. That was another big color for
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: doors and shutters in colonial times, a deep, earthy green.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: You'd see plenty of that to this day. If you
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: picture a classic colonial door, a lot of us picture
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: a dart green door, and that's because you know, that's
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: really what they were doing. That look goes way back.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: So you've got that rust red, that kind of dirty
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: rust red. You've got greens. Black shows up on the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: doors too. More as you move a little bit later
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: in times, so you kind of move out of the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: seventeen you know, late seventeen hundreds into the early eighteen hundreds,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you start to see more black. It looked deep, it
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: looked formal, looked really sharp against a pale house. So
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you've got those colors, and then this one's a little
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: bit surprising. There's white and creamy off whites for the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: front doors. Those came from white lead and white lead
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: in your paint. That costs a fair amount of money
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: at the time. So if you had a crisp white
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: or a light door, that was way more of a
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: statement than we tend to assume it was. You know,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: nowadays that's kind of a little bit boring. I don't
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: know that you'd hardly ever see that unless it's something
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: that nobody's painted yet. Back then, that was a statement.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: You know, there was a little bit of money behind
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: that one. So you've got white, creamy off whites. Blue
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: is another color, A really strong blue was hard to
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: make for most of history, but in the seventeen hundreds,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: a new pigment called Prussian blue came along. It's a deep, rich,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: slightly greenish blue, and it was a huge sensation all
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: over the place. A blue door, you know, said you
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: could afford something special because that one wasn't cheap either.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: And then at the very top of the price list,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: there was one red that was pretty much nothing like
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the cheap brick red from the dirt that we talked
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: about earlier. There was a bright, clean, brilliant, fire engine red.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: And that one came from a pigment called vermilion, and
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: vermilion was crazy expensive at times in history. It was
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: worth just about its weight in gold. That's an exaggeration,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: but it was really valuable. So a truly bright red
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: door was about the loudest way to tell the world
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: that you had money. You got red doors. People see that,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: they know you got money. They know if I'm inclined
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: to rob a house, maybe that's the one. You know.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: That's what red said. There's money here, there's all kinds
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of extravagance and all kinds of amazing things here. That's
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: what that red door says. So that's the range you'd
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: see on the doors, deep greens, dark red browns, black
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: creamy whites, the occasional special blue, and then that one
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: luxury fire engine red way at the top. And I
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: think that's what I love about all of this, because
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: when we talk about colonial America, especially around fourth of July.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: We tend to picture everything. II picture everything in parchment colors, right,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: old paper, brownwood, graystone, powdered wigs, candlelight. You know, even
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the red and the blue and the white on the flag,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the red and the blue, in my mind are muted,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you know, toned down all of that. But the real world,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that way. The real colonial world wasn't that way.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: These people cared about color, They cared about first impressions.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: They cared about what their house said from the road,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: you know, curb appeal. They didn't have that word, but
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: they sure did have the concept. You know. Maybe they
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: didn't have the money to paint the whole house. Maybe
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the sides in the back we're gonna weather gray and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: brown and you know, fend for themselves. But the front door,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the front of the house, that all mattered, you know.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: And the front door specifically was that place where homeowners
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: could make a small investment and get a huge visual return.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And honestly, that really hasn't changed all that much. Two
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years later. We're all still doing the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: same thing, lots of us. Anyway, We stand in front
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: of the paint display and we agonize over one tiny
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: little part of the house. It's a quart's worth of paint,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: and yet we agonize over it. Is this red too much?
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Is it too loud? Is the green too serious? You
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: know whatever? We weigh these colors. And we do that
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: because we know the front door speaks before anybody inside
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: gets a chance to. So if you're looking for a
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: summer project, a summer weekend project, just something little, check
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: out your front door. You know what's it saying to
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the world driving by. What's it saying to you? Because
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: it's it matters to us too as homeowners. You know
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: that front door. What's it saying. If it's time for
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: a change. If you need to change the message a
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: little bit for your front door, swing into any Repcolite
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and we'll help you find the perfect color. It's quart
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: of paint. Like I said, about four hours worth of
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: work and it's got a huge payoff. All right, let's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: take a break and when we come back, I want
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to dig into the real story of Betsy Ross. You know,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: we know we know parts of her story. We're going
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: to get the whole thing and it's way better than
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: what you think. You know that's coming up in just
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: a minute stick around. Home in Progress is brought to
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: you by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore. Think about it.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: You spend hours prepping, sandy, taping, and then finally painting.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Don't throw all that work away with an inferior product.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: The paint isn't just another supply. The paint is the project.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Make sure it's the best. And we're back. You're listening
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to the Home in Progress fourth of July Extravaganza brought
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to you by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore. And yes,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: it is a full fledged extravaganza. It's the real deal.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: It's the whole hog, a complete extravaganza. And right now
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about a character from the Revolutionary
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: War period who I think we all know something about,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: or we think we do. We think we know something
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: about this person. It's a tail that I think you know,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I probably all of us know parts of Picture the scene,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Picture the scene. Let's just imagine this in the theater
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: of the mind. We're in Philadelphia. Okay, it's June seventeen
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: seventy six. It's hot outside, right the streets they smell
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: like Mackinaw Island without the fudge. And the candy and
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: all that, just just the horses and the things the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: horses do. And then add to that a whole bunch
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of sweat smell, right because back then deodorant not a thing,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: and everybody's walking around in buckled shoes. They're wearing lots
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: of heavy clothing, you know, so they're sweating up a storm.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: That's where that wave of sweat smell is coming from.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: You know. They're walking around doing that, and they're chatting
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: vocally about England. Some are fro you know, pro England,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: some are against what England's doing. But that's the topic
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: on everybody's mind. So that's what's going on all around. Well,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: as that's happening, we hear the bell on the door
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of a little shop, you know, ding and a secret
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: committee of revolutionaries, you know, three men, with George Washington
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: among them, walk in to this little Philadelphia upholstery shop.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: All right, seventeen seventy six. These three guys walk in.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: George Washington is there? The bell rings, This humble you know,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: young seamstress pops up from behind the counter and says,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: may I help you? You know, something like that. She
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: said it in a very you know, probably not like that.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: That's more creepy than anything else. But she says, may
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I help you? And two of the men you know,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: stand by the front door, probably on either side of it,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and they flip you know, I imagine they flip that open
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: for business sign to closed, right, and then they pull
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the blinds down, and the seamstress, you know, that startles
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: her a little bit. She starts to ask what's going
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: on here? And that's when good old George, George Washington
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: steps forward out of the shadows, probably, and he's got
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: a scroll of paper in his hand, and he spreads
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: it open on the table, and they are in the candlelight.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: The seamstress sees this rough sketch for an national flag. Okay,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: it's got thirteen stripes, it's got thirteen stars, and each
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: star has six points. One of the men clears his throat, Yah,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: can you make this? You know? He asked the question.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that was his real accent, but
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: that's what I've got anyway, he asked that question. The seamstress,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: who of course is Betsy Ross, looks it over, mumbles
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to herself a little bit as she's thinking, you know,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: she's probably nodding as she does that, and then she
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: crosses her arms and looks at the men, you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: one at a time, and then says, I can do it,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: but we've got to lose these six sided stars. We've
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: gotta go with five pointed ones because it's way easier. Yeah,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: what do you mean way easier? You know? The men
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: were confused, It didn't make any sense. She grabs a
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: piece of paper, folds it, says, look at this, and then,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: with one single snip of her scissors, cuts out a
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: perfect five pointed star. A great huzzah goes up, and
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: all the men stamp their brass buckled shoes in excitement
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: before George, you know, shushes everybody. You know. We're around
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: a mission here, secret mission. Guys, come on. He looks
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: at Betsy, his eyes you know, probably water a little bit,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: his powdered wig. It's all powdery doing its thing, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: he asks, in a deeply emotional voice, you'll do it then,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and Betsy grasps his hands and nods and tears, of
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: course well up in everyone's eyes, and the scene closes.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: All right, lots of us know that scene, or some
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: version of it. You know, Betsy Ross makes the first
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: American flag. It's a great little story, but is it true?
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Hold that thought. We're gonna come back to it. But
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: before we answer it, or even try to, you really
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: ought to meet the actual woman, you know, the real
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Betsy Ross, because she's way cooler than the legend that
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: we know. Because we only know a little bit about
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the legend. There's a lot about the real Betsy Ross
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that we know, and it's super cool stuff, all right,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: So let's meet her. She was born and Elizabeth Griscom
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: on New Year's Day, seventeen fifty two in Philadelphia. She
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: was the eighth of seventeen children. Seventeen children I had,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I will have five children. Seventeen can only imagine. I mean,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: it's a ton of fun, but seventeen that's something else. Anyway,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: she was the eighth of seventeen. She was raised Quaker,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you know, so plain strict. You know, picture the guy
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: on the oatmeal container. So that's so she was raised.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: But here's one thing that's kind of unusual about her upbringing.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Her dad had her trained in a skilled trade rather,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you know, than just marrying her off. So Betsy gets
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: apprenticed to a Philadelphia upholsterer, named William Webster. And while
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: she's working for William Webster, she learns to make and
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: repair curtains and bed hangings, tablecloths, bed covers, slip covers,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: all of it. And just so you know, in the
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, being an upholsterer that didn't just mean you're doing,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: you know, couch repair and putting new fabric on an
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: ugly couch or something like that. Being an upholsterer at
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: that point in time was basically the interior design business
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: of its day. You know, upholstery was considered one of
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the most prestigious and most lucrative of the craft trades.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: These were people who dressed the finest rooms. They made
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the curtains, the upholstered furniture, the batting, They imported all
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the fancy fabrics and trims, and they often did the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: work right in the client's home. So Betsy wasn't this
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: humble seamstress that we tend to sometimes think she was.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: She was trained in the high end decorating trade, all right.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So that's her trade in what she was doing. At
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: twenty one, you know, twenty one years old, she falls
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: in love with John Ross. He's a fellow apprentice and
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the son of an Episcopal minister. Marrying outside of the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Quaker faith. That's a big, big fat nope. But Betsy,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you know, she's her own woman. She's feisty, she's independent,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: she's a bit rebellious. So she said, yeah, thanks, but
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: no thanks Quakers. The Quaker guys anyway, you know, the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: ones that I've got to choose from. They've got nothing
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: on mister Ross. You know that's what she's thinking. So
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: they eloped, they crossed the river to New Jersey, and
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: they got married out of Tavern. Because she's feisty, she's
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: independent and a bit rebellious. Now, of course, there was
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a price to pay for doing that, for making those choices,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and she was expelled from the Quaker congregation and cut
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: off from her family. So that was bad. You know,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: there were some prices to pay. But there were some
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: upsides to that. Now, first off, she didn't have as
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: many birthday parties and you know, family get togethers to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: go to just saying it's sixteen, you know, brothers and sisters,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: sixteen and sisters, you know, you got a birthday party
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: or something every time you turn arounds. She doesn't have
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to do that anymore, freed up her calendar and her budget.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: You know, think of all the presents she doesn't have
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to buy Christmas, birthdays. You know, you can do the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: math anyway. So that was one one upside to being
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: you know, completely cut off from her family. A second
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: upside is she married a fellow upholsterer, and with their
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: shared skill sets and interests and all of that, her
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and John open their own upholstery shop. You know, Unlike
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of women in her era, she was in
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: business for herself. And we're talking she's twenty one years
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: old at this point. All right, I think we got
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: another half of the story to go, and I think
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: it's going to be smart to take a break right here.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: It's a good stopping point, and we'll pick up the
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: other half of Betsy Ross's story and we'll answer the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: question of whether or not she really did make that
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: first American flag, and we'll do all of that right
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: after this. You're listening to Home in Progress, where the
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: projects are real, the mistakes, they're educational, sometimes painful, mostly educational,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And the only thing more stubborn than that old wallpaper
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: on your bathroom wall is your determination to get it fixed.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Probably sponsored by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore Paint with
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: a purpose, people who care and everything you need to
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: get the job done right. And we're back. You're listening
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: to Home in Progress, the Home in Progress Fourth of
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: July Extravaganza. I don't know how many of them there
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: have been. I've done one of these oh many years.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I should have gone back and counted
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: let's say the fifth, because I know I didn't do
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: them all the time. This is the eighth year. Doing
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: some quick math the fifth Home in Progress fourth of
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: July Extravaganza, brought to you by Repcolite Paints in Benjamin Moore.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: That's what you're listening to. And we're right in the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: middle of the story of Betsy Ross. You know, we
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: all know Betsy Ross as the seamstress who made the
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: first American flag, but there's way more to her story
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: than that, And honestly, is that story even true? You know,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the first flag story is not even true. We're going
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: to answer that at the end of this segment, but
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: for now, let's keep going with the story. Now. We
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: ended last segment with Betsy getting married to John Ross
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and then both of them opening an upholstery shop in Philadelphia,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and things at that point were looking pretty good for Betsy.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: But it only lasted for a few minutes, and then
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the struggle started to hit. First, her husband died in
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: seventeen seventy five, basically two years into the marriage, and
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: that left Betsy a widow at twenty four, running that
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: whole shop by herself. Now, she remarried in seventeen seventy seven,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: so a couple years later, and her second husband, Joseph Ashburn.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: He was a sailor. He eventually gets captured by the
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: British and he dies in an English prison in seventeen
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: eighty two. The man who comes to tell her that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: her husband Ashburn had died. That man who comes to
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: tell her that is John Claypole. He had been a
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: prisoner alongside of him, and I should have looked into
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the dates and how the shook out. But after he
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: explains that to her a while later, she ends up
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: marrying that guy. Now, that guy lasted a little bit longer,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: you know, he didn't, he didn't, you know, he didn't
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: move on immediately following marriage to Betsy. They were married
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: for thirty four years before he died and together they
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: had five daughters. Now, through every bit of all of that,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: all of that turmoil, you know, losing you know, two
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: three husbands, through all of that, Betsy kept the business alive. Now,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I think you're already starting to get a feel for
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the real Betsy Ross at this point. But I did
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: run into a really colorful description that I really liked.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: She was quote a hard nosed, snuff loving businesswoman who
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: is fond of storytelling. She wasn't this mild mannered seems
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: to be just waiting to do some domestic work end quote.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: All right, So that's a picture of the real Betsy Ross. Anyway,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I said that through all of the struggle, the turmoil,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: you know, with losing her husband's I said that she
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: kept the business alive. Well, that gives that gives the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: wrong idea. You know, she didn't just keep the business surviving.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: She ran a thriving shop for about fifty years. Eventually
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: she goes on and runs the business with her daughters.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: You know, remember her last husband, her third husband, gave
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: her five daughters. Eventually she runs the business with them,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: and then granddaughters and then nieces and eventually they carry
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: it on for decades after Betsy passes away. Okay, that's
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: kind of the quick overview of how her life shook out.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Now let's go back to the Revolutionary War era and
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: drilling to the story and get to the answer about
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the you know, the flag story, the greater question we're
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: trying to answer here. And I want to go back
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: directly right now seventeen seventy four, because at this point
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: in time, there's a really great interior design story for
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the real Betsy Ross and it's a documented one. This
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: one really happened. We've got no doubts about it. So
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy four, John Ross, her first husband, he's
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: still alive at this point. The Ross shop made bed
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: hangings for George Washington. The George Washington Mount Vernon curators
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: confirmed it in twenty fourteen, finding it in Washington's own
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: cash records. Apparently, while he was in Philadelphia for the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: First Continental Congress, he paid John Ross, the upholsterer you
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: know at Betsy's shop, a down payment in gold coins
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: for three sets of bed hangings for Mount Vernon. Now,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the fabric, we've got all of this noted down. The
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: fabric was a cotton chintz. It had purple floral prints
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and it was edged in green. And just because you know,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: bed hangings, they're not exactly commonplace for us, so we
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: don't really you know, appreciate what they said or the
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: importance of them. But here's the scoop. A fully dressed bed,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: you know, with all these hangings and stuff, was often
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the single most expensive piece of furniture in a house.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: So this was you know, it wasn't just you know,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: basic work for George Washington. You know, I'll just get
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the bad hangings here. This is prestige work, you know,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: so they're doing really high end work for a really
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: you know, important American. That was seventeen seventy four, so
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: two years before any supposed flag visit. Because if you
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: can remember, and I know that's that's not easy because
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I ramble a lot, but the very open you know
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: that we did for the segment the visit about the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: flag was seventeen seventy six, you know, the supposed visit
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: about the flag. We've got real documented evidence that in
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: seventeen seventy four, two years before that, George Washington really
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: did sit down at least in Betsy Ross's shop. So
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: we can put it there all right, So seventeen seventy
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: four they design bed hangings for George Washington, her and
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: her husband do during the war. Now Betsy's husband has
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: passed away, the war starts to break out, and Betsy's
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: running the shop at this point, and in order to
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: pay the bills and do whatever she's got to do,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the shop did whatever brought money in. You know, they
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: were mending uniforms for the soldiers, they were sowing tents
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: and blankets. They were even rolling paper cartridges packed with
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: musket balls for the Continental Army. So all kinds of work,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: whatever it took to get to the war and to
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: keep the shop going. All right, let's get back to
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: that flag story at the beginning. Let's get to the truth.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: And as we try to do that, it's important to
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: be clear that Betsy Ross absolutely made flags. We know that.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: You know, it's documented. There's proof from the revolutionary time
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: period that she made flags. A Pennsylvania State Navy Board
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: record dated back to May twenty nine, seventeen seventy seven,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: shows that Elizabeth Ross was paid fourteen pounds twelve shillings
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: two pence for making ship's colors, which basicly ship's colors
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: state naval flags. Okay, so her shop did make flags,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: we know that one hundred percent, but those were just
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: you know, state naval flags. Do we have any proof
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: that she made American flags? Well, actually we do from
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the early eighteen hundreds, We've got government contracts for US
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: flags made by Elizabeth Ross. You know, around eighteen ten
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: to eighteen eleven she made big garrison flags for US arsenals,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: some eighteen by twenty four feet with well over one
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand stitches each. You know, we've got records of
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: that she made flags and American flags at that and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: she did it for over fifty years. But still we've
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: got the question, did she make the famous first flag
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: of legend? You know? Is that story that we opened
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the segment with actually true. Well here's the real scoop.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: First off, the story didn't come from Betsy's lifetime, you know,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: that's the first tip off. It surfaced in eighteen seventy,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: about a century after seventeen seventy six and thirty four
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: years after she died. Her grandson William Canby, presented the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: story to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, claiming that she
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: had quote made with her hands the first flag. He
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: said he'd heard it from an aunt in eighteen fifty seven,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: and my aunt told me this, it's got to be true.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Right Well, even though it didn't have tons of evidence,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: you know, concrete you know what we'd like to call,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: you know, documentation or anything like that. It didn't have that,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: it's still caught on, and it caught on with the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: public because of timing, largely, you know, the eighteen seventy
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: six Centennial was coming up and it was going to
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: be held in Philadelphia, her own city. The country itself
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: was hungry for revolutionary war stories, and it was really
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: interested in ones that gave women, you know, specifically women
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: a heroic role. Now, Betsy was the perfect symbol, and
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: she was promoted as a patriotic role model for girls.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: So the story really really spread, and even today it's
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: commonly accepted. However, historians have combed through the diaries, they've
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: combed through letters, through the records of the Continental Congress,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and they found absolutely nothing nothing, no flag committee, no
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: meeting with Betsy Ross in seventeen seventy six, no evidence
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: from the time period at all that any of that
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: really happened. And historians have concluded that that first flag
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: story is almost certainly, you know, just kind of invented.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: It's not real, didn't really happen, So that committee never
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: knocked on her door. Probably no single magic first flag,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: nothing like that. But don't hear that as a letdown,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: because here's the thing. We do this with a lot
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: of our heroes. We take a real complicated, flesh and
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: blood person and we you know, sand off all the
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: rough edges until they're smooth, you know, smooth enough to
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: fit in a kid's book. You know, they're acceptable to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: our modern sensibilities. We did it with Thomas Jefferson, we
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: did it with Ben Franklin. We did it with Betsy Ross.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: You know, we turned her into a sweet, quiet little
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: seamstres sitting by the window stitching stars. And that version
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: really is so much smaller than the real woman, because
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the real Betsy Ross was something else. You know, she was,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: like I said, feisty. She was full of it. And
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: you know, she got thrown out of her church for
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: marrying the man that she loved. She buried a husband
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: at twenty four, then she buried a second one, then
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: a third one, and they weren't things that she caused
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: or brought about. I don't want to imply that I'm
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: not saying that, but three times a widow, though, and
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: every single time she got back up, she kept her
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: shop open and she took care of her family. She
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: wasn't a hobbyist, you know, with a needle in a thimble.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: She was a tradeswoman in what was the most respected
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: craft of her day. She decorated George Washington's bedroom. And
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: when the country went to war, she became, you know,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: basically a defense contractor. She was cranking out flags, mending uniforms,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: rolling musket cartridges for the army. She ran her own
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: business for about fifty years, and when she was finally done,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: she handed it on down to her daughters and her
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: granddaughters and eventually her nieces. She didn't need the flag
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: legend to make her important. She did that herself with
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: her own two hands, over a whole lifetime. And that's really,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: you know, the better story to tell on the fourth
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: of July, not the polished one, not the fake one,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: the real story. A skilled, stubborn, hardworking woman who got
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: knocked down again and again and again and just kept going.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: And really that's about as American as apple pie and
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: as fourth of July as it gets all right, that's
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: all the time I've got. We're gonna have to wrap
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: this one up. If you want to catch this episode again,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: you can find it online at repco light dot com.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Whatever you do today, you don't have to make pain
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: a part of it. Just have a great fourth of
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: July and I'll see you next week for Home in Progress,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I'm Dan Hansen. Thanks for listening.