Conservators clean up Old Glory: Exhibit shows how preservation works

WASHINGTON - The bright stars have faded to a dirty beige. Thebroad stripes are covered with patches. And the dawn's early lightwould only damage the 185-year-old cotton-and-wool banner even more.

But rest assured. As the nation's capital celebrates the Fourthof July, the 34-by-30-foot star-spangled banner is still there, andcrowds are flocking to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museumof American History to see it.

They see a team of conservators, outfitted in the teal scrubs andwhite face masks of surgeons, working in a low-lighted, climate-controlled laboratory to preserve the flag that inspired ournationalanthem.The conservation room must be kept free of the toxins that haveleft the flag's fibers brittle and its colors faded. Textilespecialists with binocular magnifiers are snipping away at 1.7million linen threads that were sewn to the flag's underside in 1914in an earlier preservation effort.It's far from the "rockets' red glare bombs bursting in air" dramawitnessed by Francis Scott Key. Yet the flag that withstood theBritish bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814 and moved Key to write"The Star-Spangled Banner" still inspires patriotism - even in thedecrepit and prostrate state it will be in until the task iscompleted in 2002.An estimated 150 to 300 people have visited the exhibit everyhalf-hour since it first opened over Memorial Day weekend. Theproject's conservators and curators say they are delighted that theexhibit is teaching visitors not only about the history of the flagbut also the unglamorous task of historic preservation.A five-minute video explains how the flag, which weighs 150pounds, was protected and transported from its previous home, in themuseum's Flag Hall, to the aluminum gantry on the other side of thereinforced glass.A replica of a portion of the flag hangs nearby behind Plexiglas.Through a star-shaped cutout, visitors can touch re-created clothsamples of the 26-inch-wide stars and two-foot-wide stripes.And a series of old photographs, diary entries and 19th-centuryartifacts help trace the history of the star-spangled banner, whichwas commissioned by the Army in 1813 from Mary Pickersgill, aBaltimore flag maker, for $405.90. The flag later spent nearly acentury as a family heirloom before being donated to the Smithsonianin 1912.Come 2002, the fully preserved flag will be sealed in a casefilled with inert gas and moved to a permanent space in the museum.The red, white and blue flag, cautions Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss, thechief conservator, will never look as it did in 1814. Rather, themuseum's goal is to make it cleaner, stronger and better prepared towithstand the next millennium.They will also leave it partially damaged to retain the scratchesthat have become part of the flag's history: the missing star that avandal presumably stole; the gashes left when Fort McHenry veteranstore off about 8 feet of the flag for personal souvenirs; theunfinished "A" where Louisa Armistead tried to immortalize herhusband, who led the troops against the British and whose familyowned the flag all those years; and the 11 patched-up bullet holes.