War in the early 1800s was strictly a man’s business … as was most business in general. War of 1812 flag maker Mary Young Pickersgill was certainly an exception.
Pickersgill made what is probably the most famous United States flag. Measuring 30 feet by 42 feet, The Star-Spangled Banner flew above Fort McHenry during the battle of Baltimore and inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that would become the National Anthem.
However, Pickersgill wasn’t simply a maker of flags. She was a woman left alone to make a living in a man’s world. When Pickersgill’s husband, John, died in 1805 while seeking employment in England, she was left to find her own way to survive. Flag making ran in the family because her mother had followed the same profession upon the death of Pickersgill’s father when she was just two years old. Working with a crew of seamstresses that included her teen-age daughter, cousins and slaves, Pickersgill managed to make the huge flag that required something like 350,000 stitches. She did much of the work herself, rising early and sewing until midnight for six straight weeks to finish the flag.
By all accounts, Pickersgill was a respected and dignified woman despite having to work for a living; at least one description identified her as a “gentlewoman of modest circumstances.” In 1828, Pickersgill became president of a group of women who looked out for fellow widows or wives who had been abandoned by their husbands. In those days, this was a major calamity because women had little means of support for themselves and their children. If family and friends could not or would not help, single women and their families could be left destitute. The group calling itself the Humane Impartial Society of the City of Baltimore had been meeting since 1802 and gathering funds for the support of needy women. In 1849 the group began building a house that would basically be an old-age home.
In 2002, the Pickersgill Retirement Community marked 200 years of “good deeds” in Baltimore toward those in need. Today, 250 residents live in a modern facility in Towson, Md.
Where did she make the flag ?? :O ….
Mary Pickersgill began the flag in her Baltimore row house, but the project soon outgrew that space and was moved to the floor of a vacant brewery nearby.
Can anyone tell me where Mary Young and John Pickersgill were married? Church name? She was my fourth great grand Aunt.