The Standing Liberty quarter is a 25-cent coin that was struck by the United States Mint from 1916 to 1930. It succeeded the Barber quarter, which had been minted since 1892. Featuring the goddess of Liberty on one side and an eagle in flight on the other, the coin was designed by American sculptor Hermon Atkins MacNeil.
In 1915, Director of the Mint Robert W. Woolley began steps to replace the Barber dime, quarter, and half dollar, as he mistakenly believed that the law required new designs. MacNeil submitted a militaristic design that showed Liberty on guard against attacks. The Mint required modifications to the initial design, and MacNeil's revised version included dolphins to represent the oceans. In late 1916, Mint officials made major changes to the design without consulting MacNeil. The sculptor complained about the changes after receiving the new issue in January 1917. The Mint obtained special legislation to allow MacNeil to redesign the coin as he desired. One change made by the sculptor was the addition of a chain mail vest that covered Liberty's formerly bare breast.
In circulation, the coin's date wore away quickly, and Mint engravers modified the design in 1925 to address the issue. The Standing Liberty quarter was discontinued in 1931, a year in which no quarters were struck. By Congressional act the Washington quarter, featuring the first president's profile, was introduced in 1932 to celebrate the bicentennial of his birth.
Inception
On September 26, 1890, the United States Congress passed an act providing:
The Barber coinage had been introduced in 1892; dimes, quarter dollars, and half dollars with similar designs by Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber. The Barber coinage, after its release, attracted considerable public dissatisfaction. Beginning in 1905, successive presidential administrations had attempted to bring modern, beautiful designs to United States coins. Following the redesign of the double eagle, eagle, half eagle and quarter eagle in 1907 and 1908, as well as the cent and nickel redesigns of 1909 and 1913 respectively, advocates of replacing the Barber coins began to push for the change when the coins' minimum term expired in 1916. As early as 1914, Victor David Brenner, designer of the Lincoln cent, submitted unsolicited designs for the silver coins. He was told, in response, that Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo was completely occupied with other matters.
On January 2, 1915, an interview with Philadelphia Mint Superintendent Adam M. Joyce appeared in the Michigan Manufacturer and Financial Record:
In January 1915, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury William P. Malburn sent McAdoo a memorandum about the silver subsidiary coinage, noting that "the present silver half dollar, quarter, and dime were changed in 1892, and a new design may, therefore, be adopted in 1916. This can be done any time in the year." In reply, McAdoo wrote "[l]et the mint submit designs before we try anyone else." on the memorandum.
In April 1915, Robert W. Woolley took office as Mint Director. On April 14, he asked Superintendent Joyce to request Chief Engraver Barber, then in his 36th year in office, to prepare new designs. The same day, Malburn requested the opinion of the Treasury Department's Solicitor concerning the Mint view that it could strike new designs for the three denominations in 1916. On April 17, the Solicitor's Office responded that the Mint could change the designs. At the time, the Mint was intensely busy producing the Panama-Pacific commemorative coin issue, and immediate action was not taken. In October, Barber was summoned to Washington to discuss coin designs with Woolley, though it is uncertain whether or not he had already prepared sketches for the new coinage.
On December 3, Woolley met with the Commission of Fine Arts. Woolley asked the Commission to view sketches produced by the Mint's engraving department. Barber was present to explain the coinage process to the Commission members. Woolley suggested to the members that if they did not like the Mint's work, they should select sculptors to submit designs for the new pieces. It was Woolley's intent to have distinct designs for the dime, quarter and half dollar—previously, the three pieces had been nearly identical. The director informed the Commission that as the existing coinage had been in use for 25 years, it would have to be changed—something which numismatic historian David Lange calls a "misinterpretation of the coinage laws".
The Commission disliked the sketches from the Mint (submitted by Barber) and selected sculptors Adolph Weinman, Hermon MacNeil and Albin Polasek to submit proposals for the new coins. The sculptors could submit multiple sketches. Although the Mint could decide to use a design on a denomination not intended by its sculptor, the designs were not fully interchangeable—by statute, an eagle had to appear on the reverse of the quarter and half dollar, but could not appear on the dime. Woolley hoped that each sculptor would be successful with one piece.
The three sculptors submitted design sketches in mid-February, and on February 23 met with Woolley in New York so the artists could make presentations of the work to him and answer his questions. After discussions between Woolley and McAdoo, Weinman was notified on February 28 that five of his sketches had been selected—for the dime and half dollar, and the reverse of the quarter. The same day, Woolley wrote to MacNeil to tell him he would sculpt the quarter's obverse, and to Polasek to inform him of his lack of success. Members of the Commission persuaded Woolley that so much should not be entrusted to a single artist, and MacNeil was allowed to design both sides of the quarter, subject to the sculptor producing a design satisfactory to Woolley.
On March 3, the new coins were publicly announced, with the Treasury noting, "[d]esigns of these coins must be changed by law every 25 years and the present 25 year period ends with 1916." The press release indicated that the Treasury hoped production of the new coins would begin in about two months, once the designs were finalized. The same day, Woolley wrote to Mint Engraver Barber, telling him that his sketches were rejected, and that models from Weinman and MacNeil would arrive at the Philadelphia Mint no later than May 1. According to numismatic historian Walter Breen, Barber became "sullen and totally uncooperative". Lange notes that "numerous delays were encountered as the artists fine-tuned their models while simultaneously avoiding obstacles thrown in their path by Barber. While his observations regarding many aspects of practical coinage were quite accurate, they clearly could have been presented in a more constructive manner." In his book on Mercury dimes, Lange notes that Barber, by then aged 75, had been "compelled over the past ten years to participate in the systematic undoing of a lifetime's achievements"; he had to participate in the process which resulted in coins designed by others replacing ones designed by him.
With the new pieces, all American coins would have had a recent change of design (the Morgan dollar was not then being struck). According to a column in The Art World magazine later in 1916,
Design
The identity of the model for the obverse of the quarter is uncertain. As early as May 1917, the model for the depiction of Liberty was reported to be Doris Doscher, who would later become a silent film actress under the name Doris Doree. This was accepted for many years. Doscher became well known as "the girl on the quarter"; she died in 1970 at age 88. In 1972, a quarter-century after MacNeil's death, newspapers reported that the actual model was Broadway actress Irene MacDowell, then aged 92 (she died the following year) whose name was said to have been concealed because her husband (one of MacNeil's tennis partners) disapproved. In an article in the December 2003 edition of The Numismatist, Timothy B. Benford Jr., suggests that the supposed deception was to fool MacNeil's wife, who saw MacDowell as a potential romantic rival. In 1982, Doscher's widower stated that despite the MacDowell claim, his wife had posed for the quarter.
MacNeil submitted two designs for the obverse, the one which was successful and another, showing a standing Liberty facing right, which he would later resubmit in modified form in the Peace dollar design competition of 1921, again unsuccessfully. In the rejected design, MacNeil's Liberty leans forward, an olive branch extended in her left hand, but her right hand holding the hilt of a broadsword. According to Burdette, the design was intended to send a message to the belligerents in World War I that America wanted peace, but was ready to fight.
MacNeil's accepted obverse is only slightly less militaristic; his Liberty faces to the viewer's right (heraldic east) in the direction of the European war, and her shield faces in that direction as well. She holds an olive branch as she strides through a gate in a wall which is inscribed, "In God We Trust", with the "U" in "Trust" shaped as a V. MacNeil stated that the obverse depicted Liberty "stepping forward in ... the defense of peace as her ultimate goal". According to art historian Cornelius Vermeule, "Liberty is presented as the Athena of the Parthenon pediments, a powerful woman striding forward" and states that, but for the Stars and Stripes on her shield, "everything else about this Amazon calls to mind Greek sculpture of the period between Pheidias to Praxiteles, 450 to 350 BC." MacNeil's Liberty was used as Columbia Pictures Corporation's first logo, from 1924 until 1927, though it was given longer hair.
Vermeule suggested that the flying eagle on the reverse is simply that of the 1836 Gobrecht dollar, seen flying from left to right instead of the opposite way, as on the earlier piece. He applauded the 1917 change to the reverse, feeling that it made it less cluttered. Vermeule noted that the reverse marked the beginning of the end (at least for that era) for naturalistic depictions of eagles on US coins, stating in 1970 that those after 1921 tended to present a heraldic appearance instead.
Preparation
In a letter to Woolley, MacNeil had promised to "try and produce something that shall be of use to you". The sculptor had been awarded the reverse of the quarter only provisionally, and he prepared a series of studies for the reverse to show Woolley when he visited his studio in College Point, New York. At that time, Woolley selected a reverse similar to that eventually coined, showing an eagle in flight, wings extended and shown almost in full. Other designs which were shown to Woolley included similar eagle designs, but from different angles.
The Mint's original schedule called for the designers of the three new coins to complete their models by April 15, 1916. This would allow production of the new pieces to begin about July 1. However, the Mint quickly revised the submission deadline to May 1; this proved optimistic as MacNeil did not submit his models, in the form of bronze casts, until May 18. Even so, he was faster than Weinman, who did not ship the last of his casts to the Mint until June 6. Woolley formally approved the designs for the quarter by letter dated May 23, 1916. Despite the delays, the Mint attempted to meet the July 1 start date.
On June 21, Woolley wrote to Superintendent Joyce,