The History of the American Flag: From Betsy Ross to the Stars and Stripes Today
A Symbol Born in Revolution
On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution: Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation. With those forty-one words, the United States officially adopted its national flag — and created a symbol that would become one of the most recognized and emotionally charged images in the world.
But the story of the American flag did not begin in a congressional chamber. It was born in the chaos and urgency of revolution, shaped by practical needs and political symbolism, and it has been evolving ever since. Understanding the flag means understanding America itself: its origins, its growth, its struggles, and its enduring aspirations.
The Betsy Ross Legend
No story in the history of the American flag is more famous — or more disputed — than the tale of Betsy Ross. According to family accounts first made public nearly a century after the events they describe, George Washington, Robert Morris, and George Ross visited Ross's Philadelphia upholstery shop in the spring of 1776. They showed her a sketch of a proposed flag with six-pointed stars. Ross, a skilled seamstress, suggested five-pointed stars would be easier to cut (she demonstrated by folding fabric and making a single snip), and the delegation approved her proposed design. She sewed the first American flag.
The story has everything: a founding father, a practical woman with a clever solution, and a nation being born stitch by stitch. It became one of America's most beloved origin stories, immortalized in paintings and schoolroom lessons. But historians have found no documentary evidence from the 1770s to confirm it. The account rests entirely on the recollections of Ross's grandson, William Canby, who shared the story in 1870 — ninety-four years after the fact.
This doesn't mean the story is false. It means we don't know. What we do know is that Betsy Ross was a real person, a real Philadelphia flagmaker, and that she did make flags for the Pennsylvania State Navy Board. Whether she made the first flag remains gloriously unresolved — one of those gaps in history that mythology fills with something more compelling than mere fact.
Francis Hopkinson and the Question of Design
If not Betsy Ross, then who designed the first flag? The strongest documented claim belongs to Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey delegate to the Continental Congress and a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. In 1780, Hopkinson submitted a bill to the Board of Admiralty for several designs he claimed to have created, including the American flag. The Board rejected his claim, arguing that he was not the sole designer and that he had received a salary for his services. Neither side's position was definitively proven.
What this dispute makes clear is that the flag's design was collaborative, contested, and shaped by committee — very much in keeping with the way the young republic made most of its decisions. There was no single genius behind the Stars and Stripes, just as there was no single genius behind the Constitution. It was a collective creation, which perhaps makes it an even more fitting symbol of democratic governance.
The Evolution of the Flag: Stars and Stripes Through History
The original 1777 flag had thirteen stars and thirteen stripes, representing the thirteen original colonies. But as new states joined the union, Congress faced a design problem. The Flag Act of 1794 added two more stars and two more stripes for the admission of Vermont and Kentucky, creating a fifteen-star, fifteen-stripe flag — the flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the British bombardment of 1814, inspiring Francis Scott Key to write the poem that would become the national anthem.
Key's poem immortalized this flag as the Star-Spangled Banner, and the actual flag he saw — a massive garrison flag measuring 30 by 42 feet — survives today at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, carefully preserved as one of the most sacred artifacts in the national collection.
By 1818, Congress recognized that adding a new stripe for every state would eventually produce an unwieldy banner. The Flag Act of 1818 fixed the number of stripes at thirteen (in honor of the original colonies) and specified that a new star would be added for each new state, effective on the following July 4th. This elegant solution has governed the flag's design ever since, allowing it to grow with the nation while maintaining its iconic form.
Old Glory: A Name and a Nickname
The flag acquired one of its most enduring nicknames from a Salem, Massachusetts sea captain named William Driver. In 1831, as Driver prepared to embark on a Pacific voyage, friends and admirers presented him with a large American flag. Looking at the flag flying in the wind, Driver reportedly exclaimed, “Old Glory!” The name stuck — to his flag and eventually to every American flag.
Driver was devoted to Old Glory for the rest of his life. When Tennessee seceded from the Union in 1861, Confederate sympathizers demanded he hand over the flag. He refused, and legend holds that he sewed the flag inside a comforter to protect it. When Union forces occupied Nashville in 1862, Driver personally carried his beloved flag to the state capitol building and ran it up the flagpole. The flag is now preserved at the Smithsonian.
The Flag in Wartime: A Symbol Under Fire
No flag in history has been carried into as many battles as the Stars and Stripes, and few images in American memory are more powerful than the flag at war. The flag has been planted on every major American battlefield, from the siege fortifications of the Civil War to the black sand beaches of Iwo Jima.
The photograph of six Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945 is arguably the most reproduced photograph in American history. Joe Rosenthal's image captured something ineffable about what the flag means: struggle, sacrifice, brotherhood, and the fierce determination to prevail. The image was so powerful that it became the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, a bronze monument that draws millions of visitors each year.
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the American flag on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, they created another iconic image of the flag in a place no human had ever stood. The flag on the moon wasn't just a territorial claim — it was a statement about human capability and American ambition. Five more flags would be planted on the lunar surface before the Apollo program ended. They are still there today, though decades of ultraviolet radiation have likely bleached them white.
Flag Etiquette and the Emotional Weight of the Symbol
No other national flag generates quite the emotional intensity that the American flag does — both reverence and controversy. The U.S. Flag Code, first adopted in 1942, governs the proper display and handling of the flag: it should never touch the ground, should be illuminated if displayed at night, should be flown at half-staff on designated days of mourning, and should be retired by burning when it becomes worn or tattered.
For many Americans, the flag is a near-sacred object — a tangible representation of the nation, its history, and its fallen heroes. For others, it is a symbol that can be appropriated, critiqued, or used in protest, as the Supreme Court affirmed in Texas v. Johnson (1989), which ruled that flag burning is protected free speech under the First Amendment. Few debates in American life generate more heat than questions about the flag, which is itself testimony to how much it matters.
Fifty Stars: The Flag of Our Time
The current 50-star flag was designed by Robert G. Heft, a seventeen-year-old high school student from Lancaster, Ohio, in 1958 — before Hawaii had even been admitted to the union. Heft submitted his design as a school project and received a B-minus from his teacher, who told him the grade might improve if the flag was accepted by Congress. President Dwight D. Eisenhower selected Heft's design from more than 1,500 entries. Heft got his A.
The 50-star flag has been the official flag of the United States since July 4, 1960 — making it the longest-serving version of the Stars and Stripes in American history. It has flown over wars and disasters, triumphs and tragedies, inaugurations and state funerals. It is the flag that covered the coffins of fallen soldiers returning home and the flag that waved at jubilant crowds on V-J Day. It is the flag that flew, torn and ash-covered, from the ruins of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and the flag that went up in its place the following day, defiant and unbroken.
Honor the Flag, Honor America
The American flag is more than cloth and dye — it is a living symbol of everything this nation has endured and aspired to. At Canvas of America, we celebrate the spirit the flag represents with premium canvas art prints that honor America's history, achievements, and identity. Whether you're looking to display your patriotism or commemorate an important moment in American history, explore our collection and find a piece of America's story worth keeping.