Betsy Ross House

What can you say about the Betsy Ross House?  Located in the heart of historic Old City Philadelphia, the Betsy Ross House is one of several attractions dealing with birth of America.  The museum offers a look at the life of Betsy Ross – supposed resident of the Arch Street property from 1773 to 1785, alleged creator of the first American flag, and the best known female figure of the Revolutionary period.  Indeed, Ross often seems the lone female figure of the Revolutionary War, standing alongside Washington in the popular memory as America’s founding mother.  It is hard not to be cynical about such a place.On one hand the Betsy Ross House is an old-fashioned tourist trap, filled with patriotic pabulum/hokum, on the other it is an attempt to inject a woman’s story into the male dominated Revolutionary narrative.  It is in telling the story of a woman artisan, providing a glimpse into domestic and working life at the end of 18th century, that the museum is most successful. 

Betsy Ross as is a 19th century creation.  The emergence of Ross as an iconic American figure parallels the creation of the Betsy Ross House museum.  The origins of both are problematic at best.  The story of Ross as creator of the first American flag and the importance of the house as site of creation and transaction was promoted by her family well after her death.  Ross’ grandson William Canby first brought her story to public attention in an 1870 speech to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and later, with “other members of Betsy's family signed sworn affidavits stating that they heard the story of the making of the first flag from Betsy's own mouth.”  On the word of her surviving family members, the house was by the late nineteenth century “recognized as the place where [she] lived when she made the first American Flag.”  The image of Ross in her parlor (a more genteel setting than her workshop) presenting the new flag to George Washington comes from this period as well, made famous in Charles Weisgerber’s painting, Birth of Our Nation’s Flag.  By 1898 Weisgerber was living in the house, having helped mount a successful campaign to purchase it in the name of preserving Betsy Ross’ legacy.  Two rooms of the Betsy Ross house were opened to the public – the famous parlor and a gift shop.

Built around 1740, the house itself is an unassuming structure – a two and half story building designed for living and working.  Today, the house is flanked by a “civic garden” (built in 1941) and an annex building (built in 1965) containing a gift shop and exhibit space.  

Entering the annex building places visitors in the gift shop, where all sorts of (anachronistic) Revolution-themed goods can be purchased.  After passing through a small exhibit space and along a short breezeway, visitors enter house proper through a side-door.  Once inside, visitors are lead through a series of period room recreations of the house in use circa 1777.  The first stop is the parlor, the most famous room in the house.  Small and cramped, the room is unremarkable in every way, whatever charm it might possess is squashed by thick piece of plexiglass protecting the objects from the visitors.  The tour moves quickly through the remaining rooms – upstairs to the bedroom, downstairs to the upholstery workshop and storefront (the only room not obscured by plexiglass), into the basement to the storeroom and kitchen, and then to the courtyard.  There is little information about the objects displayed in these rooms.  The objects here gain value from their association with Ross, but what, if anything, belonged to Ross is left to the visitor’s imagination.  The period rooms are supplemented by informational signs dealing with 18th century sewing techniques and dispelling “Myths of Colonial America.”  The Museum prefers to leave the “myth” of Betsy Ross mostly intact, dealing with the dubious second hand history by putting the onus on visitors:  “historical fact or well-loved legend, the story of Betsy Ross is as American as apple pie. After your visit, decide what YOU believe!”

On the surface, the Betsy Ross House is selling the standard issue heroic creation narrative.  It draws visitors in with the familiar image of Ross as the creator of the first American flag, while quietly making a place for women in that narrative in its representation of domestic space.  The bulk of the museum is devoted to representations of domestic and working life at the end of the 18th century, which suggest the ways in which urban women lived and worked in the colonial period.  It establishes within domestic space a social and economic role for women in the birth of a nation.  The significance of this is undermined by its reinforcement of the Betsy Ross legend.  

 Emerging scholarship on Betsy Ross, especially Marla Miller’s recent book Betsy Ross and the Making of America, “demolishes the legend of Ross as our national seamstress, offer[ing] in return someone much more interesting: a real-life artisan, wife and mother whose fortunes and travails were closely tied to the new nation” (for more on this see Marjoleine Kars' review of Miller's book in the Washington Post).  The Betsy Ross House could benefit from the interrogation of legend.  By adding a more complex analysis of Betsy Ross the woman and the legend, the house would become something more than just another stop on the Revolutionary tour of Philadelphia.