Amelia Fowler

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Amelia Fowler, an embroidery teacher and well-known flag preserver, was the master needle worker who restored the original Star Spangled Banner in 1914. By that time, the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the [[United States]} national anthem, was just "a frail piece of bunting." But, Fowler called upon her patented preservation techniques to save it from further deterioration. She used dyed-to-match silk thread and employed ten assistants to reinforce the 1,020 square-foot relic. They anchored it onto Irish linen with 1.7 million of Fowler's special honeycomb patterned, six-sided stitches. It took eight weeks to finish the preservation process. Upon completion, she claimed the restored flag would "defy the test of time," and charged the government $1,243. ^[1]

Eighty-four years later, in 1998, ongoing conservation efforts at the Smithsonian Institution budgeted $18.2 million to preserving the same flag. Today, all of the stitches from Fowler's earlier preservation attempt have been removed, as well as the linen backing.^[2]

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