Francis Hopkinson stands as one of the early republic's most ingenious architects of American identity, wielding an unusually diverse creative arsenal in service of the nascent nation. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, Hopkinson understood that political independence required cultural distinction, which he sought to establish with remarkable intentionality via multiple media. Considered the finest essayist of his day, his satirical and allegorical writings gave literary voice to revolutionary principles. He established a starting point for art music in the United States by composing the first American art song; he wrote and produced the first American opera, America Independent, which presents the nation as an already ancient republic. Hopkinson translated abstract ideals into visual symbols familiar to us today, designing elements of American currency, official seals, and even the Stars and Stripes itself (sorry, Betsy Ross). What distinguished Hopkinson from his fellow founders was his recognition that we needed not only governance but also a coherent symbolic vocabulary; a grammar of national meaning expressed through words, music, image, and ceremony that could bind disparate colonists into a unified people.