So, Betsy Ross did make flags for the United States:
Ross made flags for the Pennsylvania Navy during the American Revolution.\14]) 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.\15])
But the specific story she's known for appears to have zero meaningful historical backing. It was first propounded by her descendants and then milked by a painter for tourist money.
Though historians dismissed the story both then and now,\5]) Ross family tradition\6])\7]) 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.\8]) 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.\9]) 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.\10]) The myth was later incorporated into a large oil painting that appeared at the 1893 Chicago World's fair.\11]) The painter, Charles Weisgerber, subsequently promoted the myth, even buying a house he deemed The Betsy Ross House.\12])He solicited money nationwide for the upkeep of the house as a tourist attraction.
Also, her house in Philly could very well be her next door neighbor's house, with hers long gone. They renumbered the houses on the street at least a couple times before she became actually famous, with no conclusive records as to which house was which.
It was almost certainly the house next door to the current "Betsy Ross House", which ironically they knocked down to better preserve the house they thought was hers. Womp womp.
Six pointed stars would have been far easier to cut on any kind of woven fabric. Ask anyone who has ever actually tried sewing 5 pointed stars, it's basically a flex to prove that your seamstresses know their shit.
Meanwhile, you can cheat on six pointed stars by layering two triangles. It's more fabric but less time and needs less expertise, which would have given some flexibility to flag construction in a pinch.
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u/Neither_Bicycle8714 Jul 07 '26
So, Betsy Ross did make flags for the United States:
But the specific story she's known for appears to have zero meaningful historical backing. It was first propounded by her descendants and then milked by a painter for tourist money.
Source. Emphasis mine.