but lets talk about Betsy Ross.
According to James W. Loewen in Lies My Teacher Told Me, Professor Michael Frisch at SUNY Buffalo asks his first-year college students to list “the first ten names that you think of” in American History before the Civil War. (He excludes presidents, generals, etc.) Betsy Ross led the list seven years out of eight.
Here’s reality: Betsy Ross played no part in the actual creation of the first American flag. As Loewen puts it, “Ross came to prominence around 1876, when some of her descendants, seeking to create a tourist attraction in Phildadelphia, largely invented the myth of the first flag.”
Flag Day (June 14) commemorates the date in 1777 when the Continental Congress approved the design for a national flag.
Well, that just goes to show you the power of good PR and a talented spin doctor. Another example can be found in the delightful children’s book, The True Story of The 3 Little Pigs, where the Big Bad Wolf was really just the victim of bad PR.
Not quite sure what the Big Bad Wolf and American history have in common, but whatever.
She may have just had good PR, but my recent research did seem to lead me to believe that Betsy Ross did standardize the five-pointed star for use on the American flag. Until she made her flags, the stars were sometimes six pointed. Ross used the five points because she could cut it out quickly by folding the material and only making one cut. After her flags, the five-pointed star was used on other American flags.
I certainly respect your research, but wouldn’t a six-point star in fact be the easier one to cut?
It’s an origami project. 5-Pointed Star in One Snip
How clever!
Above, NewMexiKen wrote: “Not quite sure what the Big Bad Wolf and American history have in common, but whatever.”
The point was that it’s a clever story about how bad PR (or good PR) can make or break someone’s public image.
However, since you asked, isn’t our whole history kind of about the Big Bad Wolf trying to get over on the rest of us? 😉