house she had been renting, and lived there for the remainder of her life. Her business success allowed her to become active in addressing social issues such as housing, job placement, and financial aid for disadvantaged women, decades before these issues became prominent concerns in society. The Impartial Female Humane Society had been established to help needy Baltimore families with educating their children, and to help destitute women find employment. Pickersgill served as the president of this society from 1828 to 1851, and under her presidency a home for aged women was finally opened in West Baltimore in 1851 after a long planning and construction process. Following her tenure as president, a home for aged men was then established adjacent to the women's home in 1869. 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. Pickersgill died on October 4, 1857, and is buried in Loudon Park Cemetery in southwest Baltimore. Her daughter Caroline erected a monument for her, and later the genealogical heritage organization United States Daughters of 1812 and the Star Spangled Banner Flag House Association, which had organized to save and preserve the Flag House in 1927, placed a bronze plaque at the foot of her grave. Legacy Besides making the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to compose the words to the United States National Anthem, Pickersgill is also remembered for her humanitarian contributions to society, evident in her decades-long presidency of the Impartial Female Humane Society, which eventually evolved into the Pickersgill Retirement Community of Towson, Maryland. She is also remembered for her house, known as the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House and later renamed the Flag House and Star-Spangled Banner Museum, which stands at the corner of East Pratt Street and Albemarle Street in eastern downtown Baltimore and is a National Historic Landmark. 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". A copy of the painting is maintained by the Maryland Historical Society. Mary Pickersgill was the namesake of a World War II Liberty ship, the SS "Mary Pickersgill", launched in 1944. In addition, a type of flower is known as