Stitching a Nation Together
They initially sewed by hand. They subsequently used sewing machines. Their pay, however, has historically been small in comparison to the fondness Americans have had for the products that they and their co-workers before them have produced since the late nineteenth century.
They were, and are, the sewers and sewing machine operators of the Valley Forge Flag Company.
Founded in 1882, the Valley Forge Flag Company has operated almost continuously through war and peace, seeming to slow only for the national transition from a forty-eight to a fifty-star flag, following the admission of Alaska and Hawaii to the Union in 1959, and for the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020.
One of the largest flag manufacturers in the nation, the company grew to become a multi-community operation with factories in Baumstown, Birdsboro, Robesonia, Royersford, Spring City, and Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania by 1967.
Four years earlier, a group of women from the Womelsdorf plant crafted one of the most important artifacts in the nation—the flag that draped the casket of President John F. Kennedy, following his assassination on November 22, 1963. The commanding officer of an honor guard unit that was involved in planning the late president’s state funeral later confirmed this fact.
Meticulously folded before it was presented to the Kennedy family, that flag was carefully preserved by curators at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston and remains there to this day, a touching symbol of a family's terrible loss and an artifact of reassurance that America's democracy is resilient and cherished.
Less famous variations of the Kennedy flag have waived gently over the graves of countless veterans of foreign wars since that dark period while others have flown over small-town government buildings, the U.S. Capitol, military bases at home, and American embassies abroad.
Chances are that the flag you pledged allegiance to in elementary school was, in fact, made by one of the sewing machine operators of Valley Forge Flag. Their stitches have held our nation together during some of its best and worst times, giving Americans a symbol to rally around, regardless of personal and political differences.
Think about that—and about each one of those stitches made in each one of those flags since 1882, as you watch Old Glory fly proudly this Fourth of July. And then say a silent prayer of thanks for the many unsung women and men who have made it possible for you to look up with pride.
Image: Unidentified employee of the Valley Forge Flag Company's Spring City, Pennsylvania factory creating a new American flag on July 1, 1982 (public domain image courtesy of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration).
