FACTS ABOUT THE FLAG (cont.)
• As years passed, the smaller storm flag was lost and no one knows what became of it. But the larger flag was handed town to Major Armistead’s family, who rightfully cherished it as an American heirloom.
• Over the years, the Armistead family was bombarded with requests for souvenir scraps of the fabric of the flag. They snipped bits and pieces off, giving them to veterans, government officials, and honored citizens. More than two hundred square feet of the Star-Spangled Banner was eventually given away, including one of the stars. • In 1873 the flag was attached to a canvas backing in order to be displayed at the Boston Navy Yard. • In 1907, it was donated to the Smithsonian Institute, who later hired a team of ten seamstresses to remove the canvas backing and replace it with a linen backing. It took them two months to sew 1.7 million interlocking stitches in a mesh that covered and reinforced the flag. • The flag spent the next 50 years in a glass case in the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building, before being moved to the National Museum of American History in 1964. • In 1999 it was taken to a climate-controlled lab where it took a team of workers two years to undo the 1.7 million stitches to remove the linen backing. It was examined, cleaned, and attached to a backing made of a lightweight polyester fabric called Stabiltex. The project cost $7 million and took about ten years. • In 2008 it was put on display in a climate-controlled low-light gallery where it is sealed in a pressurized chamber, monitored by sensors, shielded by glass, and guarded by a waterless fire-suppression system where it will remain permanently.
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