Last Day on the Job

Friday marked my last day at my internship and I have to say I am sad to leave. At the end of my internship I am amazed by how much I have learned in the mere two months I had been there.

I have the ability now to look at a coin (ok, a select few coins) and know more about it than just it's denomination, I know it's past and history. I learned the difference between coins that are "double eagles" (twenty dollars), "eagles" (ten dollars), "half eagle" (five dollars) and quarter eagle ($2.50 dollars).

I have more of an appreciation for coinage, especially American. I used to think that American coins were boring and lackluster. While working with coins all summer, I learned the stories behind them and how far American coinage had come. Now I can see the beauty in even the simplest American coin, the penny.

Working in a professional environment also taught me to be assertive and tactful. I had to communicate my ideas on a daily basis and had to be confident in them. I was given tasks that allowed me to put previously learned skills to use, which I was thankful to have at those moments!

Overall I had an incredible experience working for the Smithsonian and would recommend it to anyone interested in history, museums, or political history. Now that my eyes have been open to the world of coins, I cannot help but see them everywhere!

Liberty, Letting Her Hair Down

Today's favorite coin that I am featuring is two versions of the 1793 "Flowing Hair" Lady Liberty cent. The first version display on its obverse is an almost "wild" looking Lady Liberty, with flowing hair. And on its reverse, the coin features the popular thirteen chain links design. This first design did not sit well with the public, who reacted negatively to it, saying that Liberty looked to be "in fright". Some also felt that the reverse, which featured chains, was instead a representation for slavery. After two months the design was discarded and the Mint instructed for a new design to be created.


1793 "Flowing Hair" Liberty cent, reverse chain design (Image from Wikipedia.org).

The other version of the 1793 cent has a redesigned flowing-haired Lady Liberty and on its reverse displays a wreath with some sort of unknown plant. The designer, Adam Eckfelt, revised both the obverse and reverse of the previously unpopular liberty cent. Her hair was made longer and the chains were replaced with a wreath.



1793 "Flowing Hair" Liberty cent, reverse wreath design (Image from www.coincommunity.info).



This coin struck my fancy I believe because of its simplicity, compared to later Lady Liberty coins to come. I like that Lady Liberty almost looks wild and untamed and yet still very regal. I also find it interesting that for one of the first American cents, a woman (albeit fictional) was chosen to grace American coinage and set the trend for centuries to come.

Mind Your Business!

Since this is my last week at my internship, I decided to feature some of my favorite coins every day. Today's coin is what has become known as the "Fugio Cent." This coin was designed by Benjamin Franklin in 1787 after the Continental Congress passed a contract for the "coining of a national copper cent." Its nickname, 'Fugio', comes from the obverse sundial design with the phrase 'Fugio' which means "I flee/fly" in Latin. Under the same sundial design is a message from Franklin, "Mind Your Business." Both the sundial and the phrase is a word puzzle or rebus that means "Time flies, do your work."

Obverse of the 'Fugio' cent showing the sundial design. (Image from Wikipedia.org)

The reverse of the coin features another Franklin design, the thirteen chain links. Obviously the thirteen chain links represent the thirteen colonies/states. In the center of the links is the phrase, "We Are One," which was also used on the 1776 Continetal Dollar.

Reverse of the 'Fugio' cent featuring Franklin's chain links. (Image from Wikipedia.org)

This coin has become one of my favorites for its interesting link (no pun intended) to our past. I love Franklin's wit and intelligence on display on our first official cent. Even though the coin seems a little cluttered with all the different design elements, I think it is the perfect coin to represent the new United States.

Oh Susie B.!

The Susan B. Anthony dollar has become known as one of the most unpopular coins in American history. Is it because it featured a woman on it? Is it because it was merely a dollar coins, which is unpopular to begin with? Was it its confusing color (silver like a quarter) or shape?


Susan B. Anthony dollar, 1999. (Image from Wikipedia)

According to a website that features coin collecting, they state, "The Susie B. failed to catch on mainly because its size and color too closely matched the quarter" The Mint then tried to introduce the Sacajawea dollar coin, making it gold instead. A bit more popular than the Susan B., the Sacajawea dollar is still not very popular. This is mostly to blame, I believe, by trying to circulate the dollar coin, which has always been unpopular with the American public.

Image showing the Susan B. Dollar compared to the quarter and other American coinage. (Image from www.rossoverstreet.org)

Another reason that the Susan B. became widely unpopular was because of President Jimmy Carter. According to a well-known Numismatic historian, David Bowers, he affirms that because of the general resentment to the Carter administration at the time, people felt that the Susan B. Anthony dollars "reflect[ed] diminishing purchasing power." Oftentimes the Susan B. was referred to as "Carter's quarter" and not in a positive way.
Additionally, some of the public felt that the coin was just not attractive. Now take that as you will, I personally do not find some of the former founding fathers all that attractive and yet nobody has ever complained about that with previous forms of coins. The former president of the ANA (American Numismatic Association) felt that the previous design idea for the coin, a traditional 18th century image of Liberty, would have been far more beautiful.

Ever since the Susan B., real historic women (I feel that images of Lady Liberty does not count as a female on American coinage) on American coins just has not really taken off, whether it is simply because it is a female on the coin, what woman they choose to put on the coin or the idea of a dollar coin. I know that I have said this before, but I will say it again, I believe the Mint needs to place more American historic females on coins other than dollars. And Lady Liberty does not count as a "historic" female!

(Susan B.) Anthony and Cleopatra

While I was perusing through the exhibit Numismatics has in the museum, I stumbled upon this interesting find between Susan B. Anthony and Cleopatra. Apparently, there are noticeable similarities between the design of the Susan B. Anthony dollar and an ancient coin of Cleopatra VII. My question is, was that on purpose or just coincidence? Unfortunately I could not find any more information on whether this was purposely done by the engraver. Regardless, I thought this was an interesting enough find to post.




Cleopatra coin (Image from pepysdiary.com) and a 1979 Susan B. Anthony dollar (Image from www.preciousmetalshop.com).

Gendered Currency: The first First Lady Coins

Some of the first First Spouses coins (Image from www.coincollectingnews.org).

To continue my exploration on "gendered currency" in America, I've decided to research a bit about the First Lady coins created by the Mint. I noticed that these $1 coins with images of the First Ladies kept showing up all over the web when I would do research.

Termed the "First Spouses" coins, they first launched in 2007 and are expected to go until 2016. According to a coin collector's site, this idea has been doing extremely well, perhaps due to limited releases of certain "First Spouses". I noticed that these coins seemed to be solely collectors items, unlike the Susan B. Anthony or Sacajawea dollars. The question I wanted to ask was, since they are doing so well, why not put them on regular, circulated currency?

The Susan B. and Sacajawea gold dollars were both considered unsuccessful attempts at displaying women on American currency. This could be mainly due to these women being placed on the often unpopular one dollar coin. I am wondering though that since those two attempts were somewhat failures that perhaps the Mint decided to surpass trying to circulate famous American women on coins with instead just making them collectable coins. The Mint also seems to be releasing only a select number of these First Lady coins at a time, making them fairly valuable collectables.

I am hoping that with the success of these coins that maybe the Mint will consider making coins with famous American females on them for the future. Maybe they will consider putting females on anything else but the dollar coin, since that type of coin is unpopular in America. I believe that women need to be featured more on American currency, coins and dollars alike. I am wondering though that will females on coins only be successful if they are considered to be "valuable" collectables, rather than everyday coinage?

The Quarter Dollar: Exposed!

Today I was talking with one of my coworkers about her favorite coins. After looking through some trays of coins we stumbled upon the Standing Liberty Quarter Dollars and she told me it's story.

This type of coin has two types of what are known as "Standing Liberties." The first type, shown below, as innocent as it may appear for a coin, caused quite a controversy when it was first minted in 1917. If you look closely, you can see that one of Lady Liberty's breasts is exposed.
Apparently the American public did not take too kindly to the design and so a second type was developed (shown below). Instead of disregarding the design completely, the artist, Hermon A. MacNeil merely modified it. MacNeil placed chainmail over the exposed area on the new design, making her both appear less "exposed" and more warrior-like. Apparently, there are no records in the Mint citing "indecency" as the reason for changing the design in the coin. Instead, the reason is cited as making the design more "warrior-like," since at this time America was heading off to war. Regardless of the "correct" answer, who knew coins could cause quite a controversy?

The "indecent" Standing Liberty, Type I, 1917 (Image from www.coincommunity.com).



The chainmailed Standing Liberty, Type III, 1925 (Image from coins.thefuntimesguide.com).

Gendered Currency

As a little side research project, while I am interning at the Smithsonian, I have been trying to determine why most women are just not attracted to coin collecting. With almost all of my history papers, they somehow take a gendered stance, so I decided to bring that knowledge and apply it to the Smithsonian. Through this research I hope that I can contribute some insight towards the Numismatic's traveling exhibition on coins, perhaps discovering ways to attract female visitors.

Before I started researching on this topic, I thought of what might make money and money collecting a more "masculine" field. First of all, I figured that currency historically has been controlled by those in power, which of course mainly means men. And for the most part, powerful men are featured on both American (and foreign) currency. I am sure that this sort of mindset still has filtered down to today and lead to why a majority of coin collectors are male.

A little bit of brief researched backed up my assumption. From Horizonlines.org (a site on collecting) states, “Coin collecting has been said to be the hobby of kings and scholars. Coins are regarded as mirrors of history; portraits of contemporary monarchs—some famous, others scarcely known except for coins—and the inscriptions and designs often refer to important events.” (Eide, Laurel "Stamps licked by time; coins make change.") This further demonstrates that along with coins being collected by those in power, money was often imprinted with portraits of those men in power. Even from the ancient times, coins were already gendered.

I know I have quite a bit more research to do, but I wanted to share my results so far. I hope with further research I can also figure out why, when famous women are placed on American currency, these coins have not been popular in society. Take for example the Susan B. Anthony dollar or even the Sacajawea dollar. Both series were failed attempts at both circulating currency with American female icons and the American gold dollar. Look for an upcoming post with hopefully more research on this fascinating and unexplored topic!

Decisions, Decisions

As a rising senior at Dickinson College, it's that time of year to begin thinking about graduate school programs. Ever since I was little, I've always loved history and art, and when it became time for me to decide my track senior year of high school, I had difficulty choosing which way to go. Since I wanted a well-rounded education and not just an art school, I decided to go for history. Over the years, the artist in me has been itching to get out and use my creative skills again. I realized that with museum work I have the ability to combine both my love of art and history, something I never thought about doing previously.

Now that it is that time of year to decide, yet again, what path to travel on in the future. I have been talking with various people at my internship, both volunteers and coworkers who have gone down similar paths to me. There are two career options in the museum world that interest me the most. The first one is exhibition design, which could include anything from creating the didactics or script to the exhibit to creating the general layout and design to researching ideas for exhibits that will captivate audiences. The creative person in me loves the idea of being able to use my history research and artistic skills. The second career path I am looking at is collections management. With collections management your duties are mainly organizing and cataloging artifacts in a museum's collections as well as making sure measures are taken to keep objects as well-preserved as possible. This appeals to the part of me that likes to organize things and preserve history for future generations.

This past weekend I've started studying for the GREs and looking at graduate programs in both DC and NYC. My plan is to hopefully get into a university at either of these two major cities where I could intern or volunteer at major museums that would hopefully lead to a job after I finish school. Where my passion truly lies though is in smaller museums, ones that I have worked in for most of my young life. Many of them have problems with attracting visitors or sustaining enough funds to keep them alive. I would love to manage one of these smaller museums and help to get them back on their feet.

I realize that I am fortunate to know what career path I want to take, and that over the past 8 years I have worked towards this goal. I never thought I would have trouble deciding which way in the museum world I want to go!

Celebrating American Culture

If you are in DC from now until July 4th, you should definitely check out the Smithsonian's Folklife Festival. Nestled in the National Mall between the many Smithsonians, tents and vendors are set up selling food, wares and sharing festive music. The featured heritages this year Mexican and Asian Pacific Americans, two cultures I often feel are undermined and underrepresented in American culture.

Another feature of the Folklife Festival is Smithsonian: Inside Out where visitors can see different departments of the Smithsonian and what they have, as well as a chance to talk to the workers who are often hidden away during museum hours. I think that is an excellent idea to get visitors not only interested in parts of the Smithsonian they might not have known about, but to also get them interested in museum work. This past Sunday my department, Numismatics, had a tent in the International section of the festival. Along with having my supervisor and resident curator in the tent to talk about their jobs, we also had coins to show off to the public.

Since I did not have the chance to attend the festival, and I wish I could have, I hope any of you reading this will have the chance to attend. I personally think this an ingenious event that the Smithsonian has put on since 1967 and I appreciate that it promotes diverse American cultures.

Votes for Titles!

The theme of this past week at the Smithsonian's Numismatic Department has been to narrow down the title of our upcoming traveling exhibition. For two days myself and the other interns went down to the public parts of the museum and asked people to fill out quick surveys on what they felt was the best title for our exhibit on American coins and the US Mint.

The titles that we have narrowed down are:
Coins! A History of Change
Mint Condition: The Story of America's Coins
Miniature Masterpieces: The Untold Story of Coins
(If you feel so inclined, you could leave a comment on which ones you like the most and why!)

At a place like the Smithsonian you definitely meet a diverse crowd, which is excellent for obtaining well-rounded survey results. It was interesting seeing what groups of people were more inclined to pick a certain title than others. Some people really took the time to give us great feedback and surprisingly many of those "people" were kids!

So, if you would like to contribute towards picking out the possible title of the exhibit (and perhaps hold a claim that you helped pick that title in the future) click on the link for facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/sitesExhibitions?v=app_20678178440

The Life of an Intern

A few weeks ago I began my job as an intern at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. My job consists of helping out with a traveling exhibition in the Numismatic Department. This means I am surrounded by and thinking about coins all day long! Even though working with coins would not have been my first choice, I am enjoying learning so much about coins. Did you know that American currency started off as melted and redesigned Spanish coins? Did you know that there are types of pennies that are worth thousands, perhaps millions? That is just the surface of the many interesting facts I get to learn about coins and American culture every day!

Let me also preface this blog by saying that I cannot give you all the juicy details of my internship due to most of the information I am privy to is not public knowledge yet. So I apologize, because I would love to share all the exciting things we are working on, but you'll just have to wait and see the exhibit for yourselves!

My first few days at the internship were filled with meetings, research and getting settled into my new job. The meetings were actually pretty interesting because the museum issues that I had learned in my Museum Studies classes were actually happening all around me. One of the issues the meeting discussed was deaccessioning objects. For those of you who are not acclimated with museum terms, deaccessioning is when a museum decides to let objects in their museums go somewhere else, either auctioned off or to other museums, because of various reasons. The object could be now unable to be taken care of, most likely because the item is in a condition that the museum cannot afford, or the object no longer fits in with the museum's collection, or the museum has multiples of this particular item. The problem with deaccessioning is that museums just cannot sell off items if they want to make some money or if they want to dispose of an item quickly. It has to be done in the most moral and ethical way possible, especially since museums are public institutions.

The Numismatic Department that I work for has certain objects in their possession that are deteriorating and which the department does not have the sufficient funds to take care of them. Additionally, they have multiples of these particular items for which the Numismatic Department developed a plan for how many of these multiples they wanted to keep. For the other unwanted multiples, they would be offered to museums or organizations that could preserve and properly take care of them. Eventually, if there are left over multiples after museums pick them over, Numismatics would choose to sell some of the items. These various reasons are good enough to deaccession the objects in question as well as allowing the museum to be as ethical as possible when letting go of these items. It is important that these items are placed in the best care possible.

And, to those of you may be wondering, what is it like to work in a Smithsonian? Well, I can tell you it is worth the four hour commute everyday! In the mornings I usually get to work early, so I enjoy either a nice stroll around the Mall, with a view of the Washington Monument. Or I can choose to wonder around the Smithsonian before the public invades the space. These past few days I have made it my goal to explore a new section of the Smithsonian every day before work. And as the big history nerd that I am, I am loving every minute of it! I have walked through an exhibit on four different interiors of homes from Colonial America up to the 1950s and so far it is my favorite. Tomorrow it is my goal to check out the First Lady exhibit where you can see Michelle Obama's inaugural gown. Definitely one of the perks to working in the most famous museum in America!