Preserving the 'Star-Spangled Banner' Presents Challenges
The flag that defied ''bombs bursting in air'' 185 years ago in one of the nation's most-celebrated historical moments is a little worse for wear these days, confined to a dimly lighted room and wrapped around a 450-pound cardboard tube.
''It looks like a roll of paper towels,'' a young tourist said, peering through a window at the battle-tested flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write a poem that became ''The Star-Spangled Banner,'' the national anthem.
But it is the test of time and a look toward the future that has put the priceless treasure on the huge roller at the center of an $18.2 million high-tech preservation now underway after four years of planning.
Officials at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History are quick to say the flag was made to last and has held up as well as can be expected after almost 200 years.
But there is concern. Age, exposure to air, pollution, sunlight and temperature changes have taken more of a toll than the British shells at Fort McHenry in the War of 1812.
''It's old and very fragile,'' said Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss, a textile expert and chief conservator for the preservation project funded with public and private money.
''It was used for two years and flags get damaged very quickly in the wind. We're finding wear from when it was flying compounded by 180 years of natural aging and a variety of other things,'' she said.
The woolen and cotton fibers have become brittle and the conservators say it could not hang without a support backing.
''DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT''
Fort McHenry guarded a key entrance to Baltimore Harbor during the war and garrison commander Maj. George Armistead wanted a flag big enough for British forces to see from afar.
He commissioned a young widow, Mary Pickersgill, to fill his order and in 1813 she began work on a red-white-and-blue wool flag with white cotton stars aligned in a blue field. Weeks later, the banner with 15 stripes and 15 stars for the 15 states was completed for $405.90. It was 30 feet by 42 feet and weighed 50 pounds , not an unusual size for garrison flags at that time.
More than a year later, after British forces had captured Washington and burned the White House, the Capitol and other buildings, they attacked Baltimore. British ships bombed Fort McHenry during the day and into the night of Sept. 13, 1814.
At dawn on the 14th, Key, an American lawyer detained aboard a British ship in the harbor, saw the banner flying defiantly. He wrote a poem that was printed on a handbill in Baltimore and was later set to ''Anacreon in Heaven,'' an English music club song. It became the U.S. national anthem in 1931.
The flag was stored and exhibited privately for most of the 19th century and loaned to the Smithsonian in 1907. It underwent its only other major preservation in 1914, when Amelia Fowler sewed on a linen backing.
Smithsonian officials say records and letters show that long before Fowler's work pieces of the flag were cut away as souvenirs or decorations on the graves of soldiers who served at Fort McHenry. Fabric loss is about 8 feet.
From 1964 until its removal last December, the flag was displayed at the American History museum.
'PRESERVATION,' NOT 'RESTORATION'
Mention restoration and mild-mannered museum staff grit their teeth. ''This is not a restoration,'' Thomassen-Krauss said of the three-year project at the museum to examine, clean and replace Fowler's linen backing with a new support.
''No, no, not restoration,'' another museum official said. ''It's preservation.''
Thomassen-Krauss says her job is not to make the flag look new or the way it did 185 years ago but to ''intervene'' to preserve what is left of it so it can last another 185 years, at least. ''Our goal here is to stabilize this flag.''
Treating America's treasures is serious business and cutting-edge preservation takes a cue from medicine. For this patient of history, experts constructed a $1 million glass and chrome conservation facility as spotless as an operating room. Climate and lighting are strictly controlled.
Technicians wear white lab coats and, on occasion, don hospital ''scrubs'' to do their work as the flag emerges at a snail's pace from the roller where it was placed in January onto a 1,000-square-footaluminum ''operating'' table. The preservation team works by sitting or lying on a 35-foot-wide) movable gantry platform suspended just inches over the flag.
''As we unroll it, people sitting behind the tube clip the stitches,'' Thomassen-Krauss said. ''We use all kinds of different things -- surgical tools, tweezers and cutters.'' Some tools are curved away from the surface to avoid an accidental poking of the flag during the preservation, which can be viewed by the public.
'THOROUGH ... CAREFUL' PROCESS
Fowler stitched all over the flag and her linen backing is an interlocking honeycomb. The stitches, about 1.7 million of them, are about 1/4-inch square.
The flag will be dry cleaned incrementally as Fowler's stitches are clipped, then placed on a new backing before being redisplayed in 2002. The backing, which has not been determined, may be transparent to show both sides of the flag.
The work is painstaking and ''thorough,'' Thomassen-Krauss said. ''You have to do it extremely carefully and slowly.''
So far work is going about as expected, with no big surprises. A needle was found in the flag but its source has not been determined. It is not thought to be Pickersgill's.
Conservators are trying to pinpoint 11 known areas of the flag repaired after the Fort McHenry battle. Some patches are on the side covered by Fowler's backing. Lines and folds can be detected showing how the flag flew at Fort McHenry.
Thomassen-Krauss said the flag has reached a point where it probably will not fade anymore because natural materials like wool and cotton ''have a rapid fade cycle and then level off.'' She said experts cannot detect any fading since Fowler put her stitches in and are impressed with the quality of Pickersgill's craftsmanship even though time has taken its toll on her work.
''The indication was it was made to withstand time, yes. It was reinforced so it could not be torn off that flag pole (at Fort McHenry). There was a conscious effort made to make it as strong as she could make it.''
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