Theater Brings ‘Broad Stripes and Bright Stars’ and the Star-Spangled Banner’s Creator to the Museum Floor

A new theater performance features the story of Mary Pickersgill just steps away from the Star-Spangled Banner

On September 13 and 14th, 1814, Baltimore rooftops were filled with men, women, and children as British warships, part of the world’s most powerful navy, lit up the sky on a stormy night and bombarded Fort McHenry. As the ground shook, few residents would have been more interested in watching than Mary Pickersgill, whose flag was flying above the fort and whose life story is told in a new theater performance at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. 

Mary Pickersgill and Fort McHenry 

"The portals of hell appeared to have been thrown open,” Baltimore visitor John Moore wrote to his wife during the battle. One of the 1,000 defenders inside the fort wrote, “We were like pigeons tied by the legs to be shot at.” 

Pickersgill was 37 when she was commissioned to sew the flags that flew over Fort McHenry during and after the battle in the War of 1812. Today, her huge garrison flag—the Star-Spangled Banner—is on display in the center of the museum. 

Unfortunately, Pickersgill did not keep a diary, so it’s not known whether she watched the bombardment. “Mary could probably have seen the battle,” said Christopher Sniezek, executive director of the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House, a museum complex that includes Pickersgill’s Baltimore house where the flags were sewn. Sniezek took visitors on a behind-the-scenes tour to an upper-floor attic window, which would have provided a view of the harbor before today’s tall buildings.

Watching the costumed performance by actress Leigh Jaye, visitors to the National Museum of American History learn how Pickersgill incredibly made two flags for Fort McHenry in a six-to-eight-week period, working by hand. She likely had help from her thirteen-year-old daughter Caroline; nieces Hannah Young (11), Eliza Young (13), and Margaret Young (15); and a thirteen-year-old African American indentured apprentice, Grace Wisher, who had entered into a six-year apprenticeship to learn “the art and mystery of Housework and plain sewing.” Pickersgill’s 73-year-old mother, flag maker Rebecca Young, may have contributed as well. 

According to Sniezek, it was probably Pickersgill’s “reputation, mixed with familial relations . . . and her actual business model” which led to the flag-making commission. Mary’s flag-maker mother, Rebecca, heavily advertised her family business in Baltimore publications. It didn’t hurt that the two officers who hired her, Brigadier General John Stricker and Commodore Joshua Barney, were in her family. Mary and her helpers sewed a 17-foot-by-25-foot storm flag that likely flew over the fort during the battle, as well as the huge 30-by-42-foot, 50-pound garrison flag that is today known as the Star-Spangled Banner. 

Both flags featured the design approved by Congress in 1794, with 15 stripes and 15 stars (one for each state). This design was not updated until April 4, 1818, so Pickersgill followed the law—even though Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana had already been admitted to the Union. 

The fort’s commander, Major George Armistead, ordered the garrison flag to be “so large that the British will have no difficulty seeing it from a distance.” The size prompted Pickersgill to get permission to spread it out inside a neighborhood brewery. Nobody knows for sure what happened to the smaller storm flag. Ironically, the material for the flags came from England. 

Francis Scott Key and the Star-Spangled Banner 

Maryland lawyer Francis Scott Key watched the Battle of Fort McHenry from an American truce ship tethered to a British warship in Baltimore’s harbor, and he saw the larger garrison flag when it was raised at 9 a.m. after the 25-hour bombardment ended. The flag demonstrated the fort had survived and inspired Key to compose a song that could be adapted to an old English tune. In it, he wrote of the “rockets’ red glare”—evoking the wildly inaccurate British Congreve rockets that had lit up the night sky—but triumphantly observed that, when dawn arrived, “our flag was still there.” Key’s description of the flag as the “star-spangled banner” struck a chord, and the song became our National Anthem in 1931.  

Fort McHenry’s survival was a crucial victory for the United States because it came a month after U.S. forces failed to prevent the British from entering Washington and burning the U.S. Capitol and what is now the White House. The Americans saved their reputation while turning back the British in a Baltimore-area land battle. The British navy withdrew after it became clear that the fort had survived. 

Broad Stripes and Bright Stars 

Leigh Jaye, as Pickersgill, currently performs just outside the Star-Spangled Banner exhibition, which she recasts as “just outside her showroom.” She tailors her play to widely different audiences, weaving together history and the art of flag-making. Children get to feel the white stars on their blue background, and the youngest among them are asked if they recognize fabrics and colors.  

To give the audience a sense of the flag’s size, she has participants unfurl a 42-foot-long stripe.

She also fields questions from visitors:  

How much were you paid? 

“$574.44 for both of the flags, which was quite a sum of money (more than $10,300 today). According to the Flag House museum in Baltimore, a day laborer in the city made a dollar or less a day.  However, the Flag House says it’s possible that Mary’s expenses resulted in a loss.” 

Did you dye the fabric? 

“The wool was acquired already dyed. Mary was not a dyer. The blue was dyed in indigo. The red was from madder root. The white was unbleached fabric with both the wool and the cotton.” 

How many flags have you made? 

“Countless! After (husband) John Pickersgill died eight years before, flag making was Mary's livelihood and primary income for the household. Additionally, her widowed mother, Rebecca Young, was a flag maker in Philadelphia during the War for Independence and again in Baltimore for a time. Mary would have grown up in that environment, likely assisting her mother when possible.” 

Didn’t Betsy Ross make this flag? 

Ross was a different flag-maker, who was once popularly credited with sewing the first American flag. There’s a controversy over whether Ross actually made the first flag, which is not known to exist. Many museum visitors ask for the Betsy Ross flag. Jaye, when asked about Betsy Ross, responds: 

“Mrs. Elizabeth Ross (now Elizabeth Claypoole by 1813) was an upholsterer of Philadelphia when the War for Independence began. In 1777 evidence shows she made a flag for the Pennsylvania Navy. Evidence also shows that throughout the war she was compensated for a variety of needs contracted out to women just like her. In fact, she and Rebecca Young (Mary's mother) appear in the same military stores ledger book for payment of work. Between the War for Independence and the War of 1812, Elizabeth Claypoole did receive contracts for military flags.” 

“It’s likely that Mary’s mother knew or knew of Betsy,” said Sniezek, the Flag House museum director. She lived only several blocks from Betsy’s house in Philadelphia. There’s no controversy over who made the Fort McHenry flags. And here’s the receipt. 

Jaye is thrilled to bring the performance to visitors. 

“I appreciate the opportunity to bring Mary Pickersgill to life at the museum for so many visitors, most of whom have never heard of her,” she said.  

“There are so many women throughout history that never make the textbooks. Their contributions may have been intended to create an immediate impact but have been overlooked or eroded with time. Or they may be like Mary Pickersgill (and, frankly, Elizabeth Ross Ashburn Claypoole)—women who were simply doing their daily best, looking out for their own family, their own community, and created a moment that has rippled through the pages of history. Most of our visitors are regular people doing their daily best—just like Mary. I hope they see themselves in the figure I present.” 

This post was originally published on the National Museum of American History's blog on September 25, 2026

Larry Margasak is a retired journalist who loves American history and has volunteered at the museum since 2014.

Please visit the museum's calendar to find an up-to-date schedule for Broad Stripes, Bright Stars and the museum's other programs.

Ongoing support of the Museum’s commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary is made possible by the A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation, Lilly Endowment Inc., Americana Corner, Julie and Greg Flynn, Enrique and Alejandra Segura, Tom and Karen Rutledge, and the Honorable Barbara H. Franklin, with additional support from many other generous donors.