I went to visit my great aunt in Amarillo this weekend and had a fabulous time! She let me look through her coin collection of silver coins from the 19th and 20th centuries. Something interesting I noticed is that most of the coins had Lady Liberty on them (in different poses) until about the 1930s. Then she was replace by dead white men -- okay, they were presidents and other such important men. But really, the Liberty coins were so beautiful. Why did they have to go away? Was this some kind of anti-woman plot? We did get the Susan B. Anthony and Sacagewea dollars later in the 20th century, but they never were circulated much. I can't help but think we have lost something from our culture by replacing images of Lady Liberty with dead presidents. Just some thoughts before I post my assigned blog later tonight. Here are just a few example of other Lady Liberty coins:
http://www.coinfacts.com/silver_dollars/silver_dollars.html
I did not know about the Lady Liberty coins! I would love to know why they were phased out. I just read that they made "comebacks" of varying sorts in 1986 and 1997, but not in ways that could have resulted in them becoming as ubiquitous as our dead president coins. Consider me intrigued.
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