GOLINO REVIEWS NEW COIN SERIES HONORING WOMEN

On March 15, during Women’s History Month, a bipartisan effort was launched in Congress to direct the U.S. Treasury to begin a new quarter dollar series that celebrates the centennial of the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920 that gave women the right to vote. That moment was the culmination of the women’s suffragist movement that began in 1848 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott invited female and male abolitionists to gather at Seneca Falls, New York.

Quarters would be issued for prominent American women who were residents of each state, the District of Columbia, and the territories who made significant contributions to the nation following the end of the current America the Beautiful quarter series. The last of those coins that honor the Tuskegee National Airmen Historic Site in Alabama is slated to be issued in early 2021.

The new coins would be issued starting on April 1, 2021, in alphabetical order in of the states beginning with Alabama and would presumably end in 2032, since five designs would appear each year (if the maximum number allowed in the bill’s language is issued), and there are 56 states and territories.

Will It Be Popular?
As for the proposed quarter series on prominent American women, the public may embrace it not only because of the current focus on women in our culture but also because the only U.S. coins with real women on them are those for the nation’s first ladies (who appeared on the 2006-2016 $10 gold First Spouse coins and the 1999 Dolly Madison silver dollar) and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics and appears on a 1995 commemorative silver dollar.

Real American women have been strikingly absent from our circulating coinage throughout our history, which is remarkable considering the important role they have played in our history. Women do appear on some of our commemoratives such as the new Breast Cancer Awareness coins, the 2014 Civil Rights coin, and others, but they are not images of specific, actual women who lived.

Moreover, real American women other than the first ladies have appeared on many coins issued by foreign mints such as those that depict famous actresses like Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, and Marilyn Monroe.

To read the complete article, see:
New quarter dollar series proposed to honor prominent American women (http://news.coinupdate.com/new-quarter-dollar-series-proposed-to-honor-prominent-american-women/)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
BILL SEEKS TO PUT WOMEN ON QUARTERS (http://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylum_v21n11a19.html)

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