Betsy Ross and the First Flag

Ages 4–109 minAmerican

The beloved tale of the Philadelphia seamstress said to have sewn the first American flag — told warmly as the family legend it is, beside the true story of a real working woman whose skilled hands really did make flags.

A warm, sunlit colonial Philadelphia upholstery shop: a young woman at a long worktable folding a square of pale cloth with sharp scissors in hand, bolts of red, white, and blue fabric in the corner, and a half-finished flag of stripes and a blue field of stars spread across the table. — Adapted from the Betsy Ross family legend — first shared publicly by her grandson William Canby in 1870 — and the U.S. Flag Resolution of June 14, 1777.

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