Editing Flag of the United States (section)

===Designer of the first stars and stripes===
[[File:Hopkinson Flag of the United States.svg|thumb|Francis Hopkinson's flag for the U.S., an interpretation, with 13 six-pointed stars arranged in five rows<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Williams | first1=Earl P. Jr. |title=Did Francis Hopkinson Design Two Flags? |journal=NAVA News |date=October 2012 |issue=216 |pages=7–9 |url=https://www.flagguys.com/pdf/NAVANews_2012_no216.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306083443/http://www.flagguys.com/pdf/NAVANews_2012_no216.pdf |archive-date=March 6, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>]]
[[File:Hopkinson Flag of the United States Navy.svg|thumb|Hopkinson Flag for the U.S. Navy, an interpretation<ref>Williams (2012), p.7.</ref>]]
[[Francis Hopkinson]] of [[New Jersey]], a naval flag designer and a signer of the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]], designed a flag in 1777<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hess |first1=Debra |year=2008|title=The American Flag |page=21|publisher=Benchmark Books |isbn=978-0-7614-3389-7}}</ref> while he was the chairman of the Continental Navy Board's Middle Department, sometime between his appointment to that position in November 1776 and the time that the flag resolution was adopted in June 1777. The Navy Board was under the Continental Marine Committee.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hastings|first1=George E.|title=The Life and Works of Francis Hopkinson|date=1926|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|page=218}}</ref> Not only did Hopkinson claim that he designed the U.S. flag, but he also claimed that he designed a flag for the U.S. Navy. Hopkinson was the only person to have made such a claim during his own life when he sent a letter and several bills to Congress for his work. These claims are documented in the [[Journals of the Continental Congress]] and George Hasting's biography of Hopkinson. Hopkinson initially wrote a letter to Congress, via the Continental Board of Admiralty, on May 25, 1780.<ref>Hastings, p. 240.</ref> In this letter, he asked for a "Quarter Cask of the Public Wine" as payment for designing the U.S. flag, the seal for the Admiralty Board, the seal for the Treasury Board, Continental currency, the [[Great Seal of the United States]], and other devices. However, in three subsequent bills to Congress, Hopkinson asked to be paid in cash, but he did not list his U.S. flag design. Instead, he asked to be paid for designing the "great Naval Flag of the United States" in the first bill; the "Naval Flag of the United States" in the second bill; and "the Naval Flag of the States" in the third, along with the other items. The flag references were generic terms for the naval ensign that Hopkinson had designed: a flag of seven red stripes and six white ones. The predominance of red stripes made the naval flag more visible against the sky on a ship at sea. By contrast, Hopkinson's flag for the United States had seven white stripes and six red ones – in reality, six red stripes laid on a white background.<ref name="Williams, pp. 7-9">Williams, pp. 7–9.</ref> Hopkinson's sketches have not been found, but we can make these conclusions because Hopkinson incorporated different stripe arrangements in the Admiralty (naval) Seal that he designed in the Spring of 1780 and the Great Seal of the United States that he proposed at the same time. His Admiralty Seal had seven red stripes;<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Moeller|first1=Henry W. |title=Two Early American Ensigns on the Pennsylvania State Arms|journal=NAVA News|date=January 2002|issue=173|page=4}}</ref> whereas his second U.S. Seal proposal had seven white ones.<ref name=Patterson>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/TheEagleAndTheShield/The%20Eagle%20and%20the%20Shield#page/n81|title=The Eagle and the Shield: A History of the Great Seal of the United States|last1=Patterson|first1=Richard Sharpe|last2=Dougall|first2=Richardson|publisher= Washington: Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, Dept. of State: for sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off.|date=1978|orig-date=1976 i.e. 1978|series=Department and Foreign Service series; 161 Department of State publication; 8900|lccn=78602518|oclc=4268298|page=37}}</ref> Remnants of Hopkinson's U.S. flag of seven white stripes can be found in the Great Seal of the United States and the President's seal.<ref name="Williams, pp. 7-9"/> The stripe arrangement would have been consistent with other flags of the period that had seven stripes below the canton, or blue area with stars.  For example, two of the earliest known examples of Stars and Stripes flags were painted by a Dutch artist who witnessed the arrival of Navy Lieutenant John Paul Jones' squadron in Texel, The Netherlands, in 1779. The two flags have seven stripes below the canton.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Furlong |first1=William Rea |last2=McCandless |first2=Byron |title=So Proudly We Hail: The History of the United States Flag |date=1961 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |location=Washington |page=130}}</ref>

When Hopkinson was chairman of the Navy Board, his position was like that of today's Secretary of the Navy.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Zall|first1=Paul M.|title=Comical Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Humor of Francis Hopkinson|date=1976|publisher=Huntington Library|location=San Marino, California|page=10}}</ref> The payment was not made, most likely, because other people had contributed to designing the [[Great Seal of the United States]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Williams |first1=Earl P. Jr. |title=The 'Fancy Work' of Francis Hopkinson: Did He Design the Stars and Stripes? |journal=Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives |date=Spring 1988 |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=47–48}}</ref> and because it was determined he already received a salary as a member of Congress.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(jc01845)) |title=Journals of the Continental Congress – Friday, October 27, 1780 |publisher=Library of Congress |access-date=September 3, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=Furlong, William Rea |author2=McCandless, Byron |year=1981 |title=So Proudly We Hail: The History of the United States Flag |pages=[https://archive.org/details/soproudlywehailh00furl/page/98 98]–101 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0-87474-448-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/soproudlywehailh00furl |url-access=registration }}
</ref> This contradicts the legend of the [[Betsy Ross flag]], which suggests that she sewed the first Stars and Stripes flag at the request of the government in the Spring of 1776.<ref name="fcic">[http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/misc/ourflag/history1.htm Federal Citizen Information Center: The History of the Stars and Stripes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110903224200/http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/misc/ourflag/history1.htm |date=September 3, 2011 }}. Retrieved June 7, 2008.</ref><ref>Embassy of the United States of America [https://web.archive.org/web/20080225010634/http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/usflag/hopkinson.html]. Retrieved April 11, 2008.</ref>

On May 10, 1779, a letter from the War Board to George Washington stated that there was still no design established for a national standard, on which to base regimental standards, but also referenced flag requirements given to the board by [[Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben|General von Steuben]].<ref name=Furlong117>{{cite book |author1=Furlong, William Rea |author2=McCandless, Byron |year=1981 |title=So Proudly We Hail: The History of the United States Flag |pages=[https://archive.org/details/soproudlywehailh00furl/page/117 117]–118 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0-87474-448-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/soproudlywehailh00furl |url-access=registration }}</ref> On September 3, Richard Peters submitted to Washington "Drafts of a Standard" and asked for his "Ideas of the Plan of the Standard," adding that the War Board preferred a design they viewed as "a variant for the Marine Flag." Washington agreed that he preferred "the standard, with the Union and Emblems in the center."<ref name=Furlong117/> The drafts are lost to history but are likely to be similar to the first [[Jack of the United States]].<ref name=Furlong117/>

[[File:US flag 13 stars – Betsy Ross.svg|thumb|right| 13-star [[Betsy Ross flag|Betsy Ross]] variant]]
The origin of the stars and stripes design has been muddled by a story disseminated by the descendants of [[Betsy Ross]]. The [[apocryphal]] story credits [[Betsy Ross]] for sewing [[Betsy Ross flag|one of the first flags]] from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Washington. No such evidence exists either in George Washington's diaries or the Continental Congress's records. Indeed, nearly a century passed before Ross's grandson, William Canby, first publicly suggested the story in 1870.<ref>{{cite web| last = Crews| first = Ed| title = The Truth About Betsy Ross|url=http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Summer08/betsy.cfm| access-date = June 27, 2009}}</ref> By her family's own admission, Ross ran an upholstery business, and she had never made a flag as of the supposed visit in June 1776.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Canby|first1=George|last2=Balderston|first2=Lloyd|title=The Evolution of the American flag|url=https://archive.org/details/evolutionofameri0000unse_j3m2|url-access=limited|date=1917|publisher=Ferris and Leach|location=Philadelphia|pages=[https://archive.org/details/evolutionofameri0000unse_j3m2/page/48 48], 103}}</ref> Furthermore, her grandson admitted that his own search through the Journals of Congress and other official records failed to find corroborating evidence for his grandmother's story.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Canby |first1=William J. |title=The History of the Flag of the United States: A Paper read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (March 1870) |url=http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/more/canby.htm |publisher=Independence Hall Association |access-date=February 24, 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150220070301/http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/more/canby.htm |archive-date=February 20, 2015  }}</ref>

[[George Henry Preble]] states in his 1882 text that no combined stars and stripes flag was in common use prior to June 1777,{{sfn|Preble|1880|p=244}} and that no one knows who designed the 1777 flag.{{sfn|Preble|1880|p=256}} Historian [[Laurel Thatcher Ulrich]] argues that there was no "first flag" worth arguing over.<ref name=common>{{cite magazine|url=http://common-place.org/vol-08/no-01/ulrich|first=Laurel Thatcher|last=Ulrich|title=How Betsy Ross Became Famous|magazine=Common-Place|volume=8|number=1|date=October 2007|access-date=February 15, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090404104129/http://www.common-place.org/vol-08/no-01/ulrich/ |archive-date=April 4, 2009}}</ref> Researchers accept that the United States flag evolved, and did not have one design. Marla Miller writes, "The flag, like the Revolution it represents, was the work of many hands."<ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Marla R.|title=Betsy Ross and the Making of America|year=2010|publisher=Henry Holt and Company, LLC|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8050-8297-5|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780805082975 |page=181}}</ref>

The family of [[Rebecca Young (flag maker)|Rebecca Young]] claimed that she sewed the first flag.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Schaun|first1=George and Virginia|title=Historical Portrait of Mrs. Mary Young Pickersgill|journal=The Greenberry Series on Maryland|volume=5|page=356|publisher=Greenberry Publications|location=Annapolis, MD}}</ref> Young's daughter was [[Mary Young Pickersgill|Mary Pickersgill]], who made the [[Star-Spangled Banner Flag]].<ref>{{cite book |author1=Furlong, William Rea |author2=McCandless, Byron |year=1981 |title=So Proudly We Hail: The History of the United States Flag |page=[https://archive.org/details/soproudlywehailh00furl/page/137 137] |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0-87474-448-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/soproudlywehailh00furl |url-access=registration }}
</ref><ref name="NMAH-making">{{cite web |url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/making-the-flag.aspx | title=The Star-Spangled Banner: Making the Flag | work=[[National Museum of American History]] | publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution]] | access-date=October 5, 2009}}</ref> She was assisted by Grace Wisher, a 13-year-old African American girl.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Yuen |first1=Helen and Asantewa Boakyewa |title=The African American girl who helped make the Star-Spangled Banner |url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2014/05/the-african-american-girl-who-helped-make-the-star-spangled-banner.html |website=O Say Can You See? |publisher=Smithsonian |access-date=October 9, 2018|date=May 30, 2014 }}</ref>