Metamorphoses, 1978–2017

Abstract

This chapter documents the multiple and often contradictory identities Betsy Ross assumed from the late 1970s through the early twenty-first century, as shifting political climates, cultural movements, and new approaches to public history reshaped her meaning and her house. Defended by descendants and conservatives, questioned by scholars, embraced by children’s book publishers, reworked in popular media, and joyfully subverted in LGBTQ+ culture, Ross emerged as icon, parody, patriot, and feminist symbol. Professional historians reframed her as a skilled craftswoman and business owner whose life illuminated the labor of working women in the revolutionary era. Claimed simultaneously by conservatives, artists, marketers, and activists, Ross became a remarkably flexible cultural figure. As her meanings multiplied, the Betsy Ross House itself took on a hybrid identity as both a patriotic shrine and the nation’s first historic house museum devoted to women’s labor in the era of the American Revolution.