The American Flag Was Sewn in Part By A Teenage Black Girl

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

In a famous oil painting, artist R. McGill Mackall depicts Mary Pickersgill, the woman most known for designing the Star-Spangled Banner in Baltimore to celebrate United States’ victory against Great Britain during the War of 1812. In the painting, Mackall included Pickersgill’s daughter, Caroline, and one of her nieces, who also helped design the flag that would go on to inspire Francis Scott Key to write the national anthem. Missing from the painting, however, is Grace Wisher, the 13-year-old black girl who was an indentured servant to Pickersgill, and is often overlooked in the storytelling of the nation’s most visual emblem, which has caused much contestation throughout history.

Very little is known about Wisher, due to the nature of her indentured service to Pickersgill, which some have noted is not uncommon for those who were indentured during that time. What has been discovered is that she was a free girl in Baltimore, Maryland, when her mother, Jenny Wisher, entered her into an indentured contract with Pickersgill in 1810. According to the contract, Wisher was expected “to learn the art and mystery of housework and plain sewing.”

Amanda Shores Davis, the executive director of the Star-Spangled Flag House in Baltimore, says that it is speculated that Wisher’s mother entered her into the contract in an effort for her to learn a skill that she might not have been able to teach her herself. “It seems as though Jenny wanted Grace to be able to learn a trade, especially as a free African American girl,” Davis tells Teen Vogue. “It would have been important for her to learn skills that could carry her through the rest of her life.”

In addition to much of Wisher’s biography being obscured, so is that of an unnamed enslaved woman who has been speculated to have assisted with the Star-Spangled Banner as well.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/whats-hot/the-american-flag-was-sewn-in-part-by-a-teenage-black-girl/ar-AAzzelv?li=BBnb7Kz

[heaven05]

1. I am sure it's true

hell slaves built the white house that the trumpturd lives in. What an insult to the slaves.

[former9thward]

2. Ahh, no...

The flag, as we know it, was in use in 1776. Its origins are not known and the Betsy Ross account has been disputed. But the flag was in long use before the War of 1812.