And yet that critical question still haunts her legacy - did Betsy Ross sew the first American flag? While historian Marla A. Miller investigates this matter in great depth and with meticulous research, she makes it very clear that her book is not all about the flag. The value of understanding the life and work of someone like Ross goes far beyond our need for a good origin story for the Stars and Stripes.
The lack of documented evidence to prove that Ross met with George Washington, suggested the five-pointed star, and made our country's first flag does not in any way diminish her contributions to American history. Instead, Miller asks, why obscure Ross' six decades of skill and training, a business that was intertwined with a revolution, and a life that seems made for a Hollywood movie to dwell on the question of did she or didn't she?
While Miller states that her book celebrates the working men and women who "made" revolutionary America, it is clearly the women who stand out in this scholarly tome. Questioning America's historical imagination regarding women, Miller presents Ross as an ordinary woman whose hard work and business acumen helped form the foundation of a fledgling country. Indeed, Ross sent her daughters to the first institution of higher education for women in America, the Young Ladies Academy of Philadelphia, helping to ensure another generation of competent women.
Ross' story is the story of many colonial women, mostly unknown, whose lives and deeds have been left out of traditional history books. Miller cuts through the haze and the element of myth surrounding the history of early American women and sets the record straight in a painstakingly (at times) detailed account of Betsy Ross' life and work.
