author
1851–1915
Best known for challenging popular legends about the U.S. flag, this early-20th-century writer dug into records and historical evidence to tell a different story. His work is especially remembered for questioning the Betsy Ross tradition and tracing how the stars and stripes actually developed.
Born in 1851 and dying in 1915, John Henry Fow is remembered as an American author of historical nonfiction. The main work that can be confirmed here is The True Story of the American Flag (1908), a study of the origins of the U.S. flag.
In that book, he examined older documents, colonial flags, and congressional history to argue against the familiar claim that Betsy Ross designed the first American flag. His writing aimed less at patriotic mythmaking and more at careful research, which gives the book a distinct place in the long debate over American symbols.
Because readily verifiable biographical details about his wider life are limited from the sources found here, it is safest to remember him chiefly through that book and its lasting role in conversations about American history and memory.