Sign up to sew the flag
Members of the public can sign up to help put a couple stitches in the flag from noon to 3 p.m. on Aug. 3 and Aug. 11. To register for the public days, visit the Maryland Historical Society website.
“Sewing machines were not around until the 1850s and we know Pickersgill stitched this flag, and a smaller version of it, by hand with the help of just five or six people in about 6 weeks,” said Kristen Schenning, director of education at the Maryland Historical Society.
The finished flag will be flown for the first time on Defenders Day in September, and then be reunited with the original at the Smithsonian in Washington in 2014.
Photo by Mark Beachy
