Stamps, Books, and Bridges, 1946–1975

Abstract

This chapter traces the changing meanings of Betsy Ross from the post–World War II era through the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. After 1945, Ross re-emerged as a model of female patriotism, domesticity, and gender-specific expertise, promoted through children’s biographies, educational films, dolls, sewing machines, and commercial branding. Works such as Ann Weil’s Betsy Ross: Girl of Old Philadelphia reimagined Betsy Ross as a preadolescent girl to reinforce postwar ideals of womanhood rooted in home and family. By the 1960s, however, both Betsy Ross and Flag Day had lost much of their cultural resonance, even as professional historians renewed challenges to her story. Amid civil rights activism and antiwar protest, reverence for the flag gave way to satire, dissent, and ritual desecration, and Ross was drawn into the era’s political and cultural conflicts. The chapter concludes by showing how, despite controversy, Betsy Ross maintained her symbolic place in American culture.