The latest addition to the Newman Numismatic Portal is a contemporary publication of the United States Mint Act of 1792. Project Coordinator Len Augsburger provided the following report. Thanks.
-Editor
Contemporary Publication of the Mint Act of 1792 on the Newman Portal
The National Gazette was a Philadelphia newspaper published by Philip Freneau from October 1791 to October 1793. Highly political, the Gazette was firmly in the Republican camp, opposing the Federalist policies of Hamilton and others. Freneau was enticed to move to Philadelphia through Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who conveniently granted Freneau a post in the State Department. Jefferson was of course staunchly anti-Federalist and apparently comfortable with the obvious conflict of interest. The conflation of politics and the press is by no means a modern phenomenon!
Signed by Washington on April 2, the text of the Mint Act of 1792 appeared in the Gazette on April 12. Although widely published, there is something about an original copy that better conveys the historicity of the moment. After faltering starts dating back to the 1770s, America finally had its own Mint and the promise of a coinage that would serve as a sign of American independence and economic influence.
Note, this is oversized document – to facilitate reading on the Newman Portal, use the full-screen option (icon at bottom right of the NNP viewer), then the magnifying glass icons at the top right of the full-screen display, along with the scroll bars to the right and bottom of the full-screen document viewer.
This is one of my contributions to the Newman Portal. I've owned this newspaper for many years, and kept it as part of my library when I sold much of my newspaper holdings in Kolbe and Fanning's Sale 119 in 2010. There's no substitute for owning the original historic document, but I'm glad to have it digitized to share with my fellow numismatists.
-Editor
Link to National Gazette, 4/12/1792, on Newman Portal:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/532389
Link to demo video on using the Newman Portal document viewer:
https://archive.org/details/NNPViewerDemo
Wayne Homren, Editor
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