Amelia Fowler

Amelia Fowler 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 U.S. 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 six-sided stitches. When she finished, she claimed the restored flag would "defy the test of time," and charged the government $1,243. Eighty-four years later, in 1998, ongoing conservation efforts at the Smithsonian Instituion budgeted $18.2 million to preserving the same flag.