[citation needed] From 1828 to 1851, she was president of the Impartial Female Humane Society which had been founded in 1802 and incorporated in 1811, and helped impoverished families with school vouchers for children and employment for women.

Her 1781 advertisement in the "Pennsylvania Packet" read, "All kinds of colours, for the Army and Navy, made and sold on the most reasonable Terms, By Rebecca Young.

[3] In 1813 the United States was at war with Great Britain, and Baltimore was preparing for an eventual attack as the fleet of the British Royal Navy had complete maritime control of the Chesapeake Bay.

"[2] In early summer 1813, she began the job, and as a task as large as the making of these flags was beyond the capability of one person to complete, and Pickersgill not only drew on members of her own household for help including her daughter Caroline; her two nieces, Eliza and Margaret Young, and likely her elderly mother, Rebecca Young; an apprenticing indentured servant, Grace Wisher; and also contracted labor from the immediate neighborhood.

[9] Pickersgill's daughter, in an 1876 letter to Georgiana Armistead Appleton, the daughter of Major Armistead (later breveted a lieutenant colonel), wrote these particulars about the flag: The flag being so very large, mother was obliged to obtain permission from the proprietors of Claggetts [sic][10] brewery which was in our neighborhood, to spread it out in their malt house; and I remember seeing my mother down on the floor, placing the stars: after the completion of the flag, she superintended the topping of it, having it fastened in the most secure manner to prevent its being torn away by (cannon) balls: the wisdom of her precaution was shown during the engagement: many shots piercing it, but it still remained firm to the staff.

[2] The small flag may have been flying when the British initially attacked Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore on September 13, because of the inclement weather that night with the driving rainstorm (which would have made the woolen bunting material soggy and too heavy to blow out in any breeze).

While negotiating a prisoner exchange aboard a British ship, Francis Scott Key saw the flag, and this inspired him to pen the words to the poem "The Defence of Fort McHenry" that later became the National Anthem of the United States in 1931.

[3] In 1959 the two homes were combined and moved from west Baltimore to Towson, Maryland, and in 1962 the new facility was named the "Pickersgill Retirement Community" in honor of the woman who had been instrumental in its creation.

[13] About the time of the American Bicentennial, noted artist Robert McGill Mackall created a painting depicting Mary Pickersgill and her helpers in the malt house of a brewery, sewing the "Star-Spangled Banner".

[16] Concerning Pickersgill's famous flag, In 1998, I. Michael Heyman, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution wrote: I am often asked which of our more than 140 million objects is our greatest treasure, our most valued possession.

[2] Pickersgill's uncle, Colonel Benjamin Flower, fought during the American Revolutionary War, and was presented a sword by General George Washington, commander of the Continental Army.

Her sister, Hannah Young, married Captain Jesse Fearson, a privateer ship commander during the War of 1812 who was captured by the British and imprisoned in Havana, Cuba, before later escaping.

[17] The couple apparently had no surviving children, because in a letter written late in her life to the daughter of George Armistead, Purdy called herself "widowed and childless."

She had become somewhat destitute late in life, and in the same letter requested some financial assistance, but also provided some history about her mother and the making of the Star-Spangled Banner flag.