The flag that became the Star-Spangled Banner measured 30 by 42 feet. Mary Pickersgill and her helpers spent about seven weeks sewing it and a second flag in 1813.
ILLUSTRATION · AIThe flag that became the Star-Spangled Banner was a 30 by 42-foot garrison flag, sewn in Baltimore in 1813.
In the summer of 1813, Mary Pickersgill, a Baltimore maker of ships' flags, was contracted to sew two flags for Fort McHenry: a 17 by 25-foot storm flag and a 30 by 42-foot garrison flag, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History says.
Her 13-year-old daughter Caroline, her nieces Eliza and Margaret Young, and a 13-year-old African American indentured servant, Grace Wisher, helped. The garrison flag overwhelmed Pickersgill's house, so they assembled it in a brewery across the street, piecing together strips of English wool bunting. The two flags took about seven weeks, and Pickersgill was paid $405.90 for the one that became the Star-Spangled Banner.
- Tier 2 · Secondary1813
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