Old Glory To Undergo Restoration
It’s a big old piece of wool, darned and patched in many places and frayed at the edges. But Uncle Sam is about to spend $18 million so future generations can glory in its tatters.
On Tuesday night, a brass quintet from the U.S. Marine Band will gather in the foyer of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History to play the national anthem in front of the 185-year-old flag that inspired the song.
It’s the first of a series of farewell ceremonies that officials of the Smithsonian will host as they prepare to take down the flag that flew over Baltimore Harbor when it was besieged by the British during the War of 1812.
Now, the broad stripes and bright stars that Francis Scott Key spotted flying over Fort McHenry by the dawn’s early light of Sept. 14, 1814, are about to undergo a much closer inspection.
The flag that withstood the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air is falling prey to much more insidious enemies - dust and light. Smithsonian officials are sparing no trouble or expense to defeat them.
The Star-Spangled Banner is the centerpiece of the Museum of American History, which was designed around the two-story display case where the flag has hung since the museum opened its doors in 1963.
It will remain the centerpiece even while it is out of its display case; Smithsonian officials are building a laboratory on the museum’s main floor so visitors can see the flag as it’s being restored.
Backers of the project think it’s well worth the effort.
“It’s arguably the most important symbol of American freedom here and around the globe,” said Rebecca Rimel, president and CEO of the Pew Charitable Trust, which is kicking in $5 million to jump-start the restoration.
Although Smithsonian officials still are studying the best way to clean and conserve the flag, Rimel painted a vivid picture of what museum visitors might see during the three years the flag cleaning is expected to take.
“People are going to have to lie on their stomachs on … scaffolding as they painstakingly clean each fiber and restore it,” she told reporters at a recent White House briefing where first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the Pew Trust’s gift.
When the cleaning is complete, Rimel said, the Smithsonian might erect “the largest piece of glass that has ever been made” over the flag’s display case to protect it from the dust and gusts of air brought in by the 3.5 million visitors who enter the museum’s main doors every year.
The restoration is the third and most elaborate the Smithsonian has undertaken to preserve the Star-Spangled Banner since it acquired the flag in 1907 from the grandson of Army Maj. George Armistead, the commander of Fort McHenry during the British siege.
The Brits bombarded the fort through the night, but when dawn broke, Old Glory was still flying above the fort’s walls. The sight inspired Key to write the poem that later became the national anthem.
Key’s poem, set to music and first performed one month after the battle at a Baltimore theater, was an instant hit whose popularity did not fade. The song already was a national institution when, in 1931, Congress and President Herbert Hoover officially designated it the national anthem.