Elizabeth Griscom Ross (née Griscom; January 1, 1752 – January 30, 1836), also known by her second and third married names, Ashburn and Claypoole, was an American upholsterer who was credited by her relatives in 1870 with designing and making the first U.S. flag, commonly known as the Betsy Ross flag. Though historians dismissed the story both then and now, Ross family tradition holds that General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and two members of a congressional committee—Robert Morris and George Ross—visited Ross in 1776. Ross convinced Washington to change the shape of the stars in a sketch of a flag he showed her from six-pointed to five-pointed by demonstrating that it was easier and speedier to cut the latter. However, there is no archival evidence or other recorded verbal tradition to substantiate this story of the first U.S. flag. It appears that the story first surfaced in the writings of her grandson in the 1870s (a century after the fact), with no mention or documentation in earlier decades. The myth was later incorporated into a large oil painting that appeared at the 1893 Chicago World's fair. The painter, Charles Weisgerber, subsequently promoted the myth, even buying a house he deemed The Betsy Ross House. He solicited money nationwide for the upkeep of the house as a tourist attraction. With the solicitations, he provided a synopsis of the myth with reproductions of his painting.
Ross made flags for the Pennsylvania Navy during the American Revolution. After the Revolution, she made U.S. flags for over 50 years, including 50 garrison flags for the U.S. Arsenal on the Schuylkill River during 1811. The flags of the Pennsylvania navy were overseen by the Pennsylvania Navy Board. The board reported to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly's Committee of Safety. In July 1775, the President of the Committee of Safety was Benjamin Franklin. Its members included Robert Morris and George Ross. At that time, the committee ordered the construction of gunboats that would eventually need flags as part of their equipment. As late as October 1776, Captain William Richards was still writing to the Committee of Safety to request the design that he could use to order flags for the fleet.
Ross was one of those hired to make flags for the Pennsylvanian fleet. An entry dated May 29, 1777, in the records of the Pennsylvania Navy Board, includes an order to pay her for her work. It is worded as follows:
The Pennsylvania navy's ship colors included an ensign, a long, narrow pennant, and a short, narrow pennant. The ensign was a blue flag with 13 stripes—seven red stripes and six white stripes in the flag's canton (upper-left-hand corner). It was flown from a pole at the rear of the ship. The long pennant had 13 vertical, red-and-white stripes near the mast; the rest was solid red. It flew from the top of the ship's mainmast, the center pole holding the sails. The short pennant was solid red, and flew from the top of the ship's mizzenmast—the pole holding the ship's sails nearest the stern (rear of the ship).
Betsy Ross was born on January 1, 1752, to Samuel Griscom and Rebecca James Griscom in Gloucester City, Colony of New Jersey (modern-day New Jersey). Samuel Griscom is listed as living at Comb's Alley in Philadelphia in December 1754 based on an advertisement related to a plantation for sale on the Newton Creek in Old Gloucester County or present day Camden County NJ. Combs Alley ran between 2nd and Front Streets and is now Cuthbert Street. She moved with her family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when she was a toddler. Ross was the ninth of seventeen children, of whom only nine survived childhood. A sister, Sarah (1745–1747), and brother, William (1748–1749), died before Elizabeth ("Betsy") was born (another sister, Sarah Griscom Donaldson (1749–1785), was named after the earlier deceased Sarah). Ross was just five years old when her sister Martha (1754–1757) died, and another sister, Ann (1757–1759), lived to just the age of two. Brothers Samuel I (1753–1756) and Samuel II (1758–1761) both died at age three. Two others, twins, brother Joseph (1759–1762) and sister Abigail (1759–1762), died in one of the frequent smallpox epidemics in the autumn of 1762. Ross grew up in a household where the plain dress and strict discipline of the Quakers dominated. She learned to sew from a great aunt, Sarah Elizabeth Ann Griscom. Ross's great-grandfather, Andrew Griscom, a member of the Quakers and a carpenter, had emigrated in 1680 from England.
After Ross' schooling at a Quaker-run state school, her father apprenticed her to an upholsterer named William Webster.
Research conducted by the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., notes that the story of Betsy Ross' making the first U.S. flag for General George Washington entered into the U.S. consciousness about the time of the 1876 centennial celebrations, with the Centennial Exposition then scheduled to be held in Philadelphia. In 1870, Ross's grandson, William J. Canby, presented a research paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in which he claimed that his grandmother had "made with her hands the first flag" of the United States. Canby said he first obtained this information from his aunt Clarissa Sydney (Claypoole) Wilson in 1857, 20 years after Ross's death. Canby dates the historic episode based on Washington's journey to Philadelphia, in the late spring of 1776, a year before the Second Continental Congress passed the first Flag Act of June 14, 1777.
In the 2008 book The Star-Spangled Banner: the Making of an American Icon, Smithsonian Institution experts point out that Canby's recounting of the event appealed to patriotic Americans then eager for stories about the Revolution and its heroes and heroines. Betsy Ross was promoted as a patriotic role model for young girls and a symbol of women's contributions to American history. American historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich further explored this line of enquiry in a 2007 article, "How Betsy Ross Became Famous: Oral Tradition, Nationalism, and the Invention of History".
Ross was merely one of several flag makers in Philadelphia (such as Rebecca Young, who is historically documented to have made the earlier Continental Union Flag of 1775–76, with the British Union Jack of the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, in the upper corner canton and 13 alternating red and white stripes for the "United Colonies") for the Continental Army, along with many other ships' colors, banners, and flags which were advertised in local newspapers.
Rebecca Young's daughter Mary Young Pickersgill (1776–1857) made the flag of 15 stars and stripes in 1813, begun at her house and finished on the floor of a nearby brewery, delivered to the commander of the fort the year before the British attack of September 12–14, 1814, on Fort McHenry in Baltimore, during the War of 1812, (receiving a government-issued receipt for the work of two flags, a large 30 by 42 foot (9.1 by 12.8 m) "garrison flag" and a smaller "storm flag"), then seen by Francis Scott Key (1779–1843) and which inspired him to write the poem which later became the national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. Pickersgill's small 1793 rowhouse is still preserved in East Baltimore's Old Town neighborhood at East Pratt and Albemarle Streets and is known as the "Flag House & Star-Spangled Banner Museum". Occasionally over the decades, there has been some controversy and disagreement between the relative merits and historical accuracies of the two flag-making traditions and historical sites in Philadelphia and Baltimore. It is thought that Ross's only contribution to the flag design was to change the 6-pointed stars to the easier 5-pointed stars. Scholars, however, accept the claim by Francis Hopkinson—a member of the Continental Congress who designed most of the elements of the Great Seal of the United States—that he created designs for the early U.S. flag. Hopkinson submitted letters to Congress in 1780 requesting payment for his designs. Hopkinson was the only person to make such a claim in the Revolutionary War era.