Just imagine: you live in a time before electricity. There are no sewing machines, no light bulbs, and certainly no television shows to keep you entertained. You spend six days a week working 12-hours each day inside your small home with four teenage girls and your elderly mother. This was the life of Mary Pickersgill, the woman who sewed the Star-Spangled Banner. Mary took up flag making to support her family. She made ships' colors and signal flags for the military and private vessels that docked in the busy port of Baltimore. Mary was commissioned to make the flag for Fort McHenry in Baltimore by the commander of the fort, Major George Armistead. The United States was in the depths of the War of 1812, a conflict with Great Britain that threatened the newly-won independence of the young nation. Baltimore was a busy and strategically important port, and Armistead wanted its Fort to have a flag "so large that the British will have no difficulty seeing it from a distance."