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‘Star-Spangled Banner’ lyrics back home at Maryland Historical Society
//July 11, 2014
The original handwritten manuscript of the ‘Star-Spangled Banner” lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key, is back home at the Maryland Historical Society, after being displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History from Flag Day, June 14, through July 6.
In Washington, it was displayed in the same environmentally controlled chamber as the Star-Spangled Banner flag.
The manuscript depicts the flag as Key saw it, at “Dawn’s Early Light,” on the morning of Sept. 14, 1814.
At the Maryland Historical Society, the manuscript rests in a custom-built case.
Once an hour from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., during days that the museum is open to the public, a mechanical device reveals the manuscript for a few minutes, for total of 15 minutes of light per day.
