Did Betsey Ross Design the Flag of the United States of America? - Publication of the Scottsville Literary Society

Franklin Hanford attempts to answer if Betsey Ross designed the flag of America in this work. Ross was an American upholsterer credited in 1870 with making the first U.S. flag, known as the Betsy Ross flag. Though many historians dismiss the story, Ross family tradition holds that General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, visited Mrs. Ross in 1776 when she convinced him to change the shape of the stars in a sketch of a flag, he showed her from a six-pointed to five-pointed by explaining that it was easier and quicker to cut the latter. However, there is no evidence to confirm this story of the first U.S. flag. The story first appeared in the writings of her grandson in the 1870s, with no mention or documentation in earlier decades.