Star Spangled Banner
On September 14, 1814, U.S. soldiers at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry raised a huge American flag to celebrate a crucial victory over British forces during the War of 1812. The sight of those “broad stripes and bright stars” inspired Francis Scott Key to write a song that eventually became the United States national anthem. Key’s words gave new significance to a national symbol and started a tradition through which generations of Americans have invested the flag with their own meanings and memories.
Rebecca (Flower) Young was a flag maker during the American Revolution. Her name appears in the logs of the commissary general for making "Continental Standards" as early as 1781, making her one of the earlier verified makers of the Flag of the United States.[1] In addition to flags, she was also paid for making blankets and drum cases between the years of 1780 and 1785.[2] In 1781, Young ran an ad in the Pennsylvania Packet advertising "all kinds of colours for the Army and Navy."[2][3] She also sewed the standard for the First American Regiment under Colonel Josiah Harmar.[4]
Young had several family connections to important figures in United States history. In 1777, her brother, Colonel Benjamin Flower, was credited with saving the famous musical icon Liberty Bell from the tower of the old Pennsylvania State House (now "Independence Hall") when British forces captured Philadelphia.[2] Her son, Dr. Benjamin Young, learned his profession from Dr. Benjamin Rush.[2] Her daughter Mary Young Pickersgill, (1776-1857), sewed the flag with her daughter Caroline and household staff, beginning at her 1793 rowhouse at East Pratt and Albemarle Streets and finishing on the floor of a nearby Johnson's/Claggett's Brewery on Front Street, and delivered to Major George Armistead at the Fort in 1813, receiving a government-issued receipt for two flags, a 30 by 42 foot "garrison flag" and a smaller "storm flag" of 17 by 25 feet. Later flown at Fort McHenry outside Baltimore, Maryland that inspired Francis Scott Key, (1779-1843), to pen the words to the poem that became The Star-Spangled Banner.[2]
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By 1820 Pickersgill had become sufficiently successful in her business to purchase the house she had been renting, and lived there for the remainder of her life. Her business success allowed her to become active in addressing social issues such as housing, job placement, and financial aid for disadvantaged women, decades before these issues became prominent concerns in society. The Impartial Female Humane Society had been established to help needy Baltimore families with educating their children, and to help destitute women find employment. Pickersgill served as the president of this society from 1828 to 1851, and under her presidency a home for aged women was finally opened in West Baltimore in 1851 after a long planning and construction process. A Liberty Ship was named for her.
The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American independence, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Formerly placed in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House (now renamed Independence Hall), the bell today is located in the Liberty Bell Center in Independence National Historical Park. The bell was commissioned from the London firm of Lester and Pack (today the Whitechapel Bell Foundry) in 1752, and was cast with the lettering "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," a Biblical reference from the Book of Leviticus (25:10). The bell first cracked when rung after its arrival in Philadelphia, and was twice recast by local workmen John Pass and John Stow, whose last names appear on the bell. In its early years, the Liberty Bell was used to summon lawmakers to legislative sessions and to alert citizens to public meetings and proclamations.
No immediate announcement was made of the Second Continental Congress's vote for independence, and thus the bell could not have rung on July 4, 1776, at least not for any reason related to that vote. Bells were rung to mark the reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776, and while there is no contemporary account of the Liberty Bell ringing, most historians believe it was one of the bells rung. After American independence was secured, it fell into relative obscurity for some years. In the 1830s, the bell was adopted as a symbol by abolitionist societies, who dubbed it the "Liberty Bell." Similarly suffragists adopted the bell as a symbol, calling it the "justice bell."[1]
The bell acquired its distinctive large crack sometime in the early 19th century—a widespread story claims it cracked while ringing after the death of Chief Justice John Marshall in 1835. The bell became famous after an 1847 short story claimed that an aged bell-ringer rang it on July 4, 1776, upon hearing of the Second Continental Congress's vote for independence. Despite the fact that the bell did not ring for independence on that July 4, the tale was widely accepted as fact, even by some historians. Beginning in 1885, the City of Philadelphia, which owns the bell, allowed it to go to various expositions and patriotic gatherings. The bell attracted huge crowds wherever it went, additional cracking occurred and pieces were chipped away by souvenir hunters. The last such journey occurred in 1915, after which the city refused further requests.
...Philadelphia's city bell had been used to alert the public to proclamations or civic danger since the city's 1682 founding. The original bell hung from a tree behind the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) and was said to have been brought to the city by its founder, William Penn. In 1751, with a bell tower being built in the Pennsylvania State House, civic authorities sought a bell of better quality, which could be heard at a greater distance in the rapidly expanding city.[2] Isaac Norris, speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, gave orders to the colony's London agent, Robert Charles, to obtain a "good Bell of about two thousands pound weight".[3]
We hope and rely on thy care and assistance in this affair and that thou wilt procure and forward it by the first good oppo as our workmen inform us it will be much less trouble to hang the Bell before their Scaffolds are struck from the Building where we intend to place it which will not be done 'till the end of next Summer or beginning of the Fall. Let the bell be cast by the best workmen & examined carefully before it is Shipped with the following words well shaped around it vizt. By Order of the Assembly of the Povince *[sic] of Pensylvania *[sic] for the State house in the City of Philada 1752
and Underneath
Proclaim Liberty thro' all the Land to all the Inhabitants thereof.-Levit. XXV. 10.[3]
Charles duly ordered the bell from Thomas Lester of the London bellfounding firm of Lester and Pack (today the Whitechapel Bell Foundry)[4] for the sum of £150 13s 8d,[5] (equivalent to £21,145.06 today)[6]including freight to Philadelphia and insurance. It arrived in Philadelphia in August 1752. Norris wrote to Charles that the bell was in good order, but they had not yet sounded it, as they were building a clock for the State House's tower.[7] The bell was mounted on a stand to test the sound, andat the first strike of the clapper, the bell's rim cracked. The episode would be used to good account in later stories of the bell;[8] in 1893, former President Benjamin Harrison, speaking as the bell passed through Indianapolis, stated, "This old bell was made in England, but it had to be re-cast in America before it was attuned to proclaim the right of self-government and the equal rights of men."[9] Philadelphia authorities tried to return it by ship, but the master of the vessel which had brought it was unable to take it on board.[10]
*The Bell's First Note* byJean Leon Gerome Ferris
Two local founders, John Pass and John Stow, offered to recast the bell. Though they were inexperienced in bell casting, Pass had headed the Mount Holly Iron Foundry in neighboring New Jersey and came from Malta, which had a tradition of bell casting. Stow, on the other hand, was only four years out of his apprenticeship as a brass founder. At Stow's foundry on Second Street, the bell was broken into small pieces, melted down, and cast into a new bell. The two founders decided that the metal was too brittle, and augmented the bell metal by about ten percent, using copper. The bell was ready in March 1753, and Norris reported that the lettering (which included the founders' names and the year) was even clearer on the new bell than on the old.[11]
City officials scheduled a public celebration with free food and drink for the testing of the recast bell. When the bell was struck, it did not break, but the sound produced was described by one hearer as like two coal scuttles being banged together. Mocked by the crowd, Pass and Stow hastily took the bell away and again recast it.When the fruit of the two founders' renewed efforts was brought forth in June 1753, the sound was deemed satisfactory, though Norris indicated that he did not personally like it. The bell was hung in the steeple of the State House the same month.[12]