Here's a review of a 2010 book on Betsy Ross and the Making of America,
Most historians dismiss the story about Betsy Ross making the first American flag. Yet despite a century of debunking, the legend endures. Across the country, schoolchildren still cut out five-pointed stars using the pattern that Ross, a Philadelphia flag maker, supposedly invented. The legend endures because publishers, souvenir sellers and patriotic boosters find it useful and because it fills a void in the American epic. Nations need heroines. Betsy Ross gives women a place in the national pantheon without disrupting our dominant myths.
In other words, history made safe ; )
Happy Fourth of July everyone!
Well, I'm a believer!
ReplyDeleteHappy Fourth to all!