American Women Finally Get a Circulating Coin Series

Until the modern era, the only women who appeared on American coinage were allegorical depictions of Liberty, often partly inspired by models who posed for the artists and sculptors who created the designs for those coins.

In modern times, the first circulating coin to feature a real American woman was the Susan B. Anthony dollar that appeared in 1979 to honor the legendary suffragist figure, while the first commemorative to feature an American female was the 1995 Eunice Kennedy Shriver $1 silver coin, which was the first coin issued while the woman was still alive. Shriver founded the Special Olympics to give children with intellectual disabilities a chance to compete in sports.

There was also the 2003 Alabama state quarter issued for Helen Keller, the famous author and political activist who overcame her blindness.

From 2000 to 2008 Sacagawea dollar coins were issued to honor the famous Shoshone Native American girl who in 1804 accompanied Merriweather Post and Lewis William Clark on their journey to the Pacific Northwest. The coins are still issued with the same likeness of her on their obverse but are now known as the Native American dollar.

There has been one series specifically devoted to real American women, the $10 First Spouse gold coins issued from 2007 to 2016 and then reprised in 2020 when a coin was issued for the late Barbara Bush. Under current law coins can’t be issued for any living person, male or female.

But now the first circulating quarter coin series that is specifically dedicated to celebrating a wide range of American women and their diverse accomplishments, which is authorized under Public Law 117-33, has finally begun. It will continue with five new coins per year through 2025.

Although the law that created them made it possible to do so, they will not also be issued in five-ounce silver versions since Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has decided against doing that. But they will also be issued in collector versions, including silver Proof coins.

The U.S. Mint announced on January 10 that the first of the circulating quarters have been shipped to the Federal Reserve. The Fed is responsible for distributing the coins to banks and credit unions around the country, and collectors can expect the new coins to begin appearing in their change in late January or early February.

The first coin of the American Women series features Maya Angelou, whose real name was Marguerite Annie Johnson. It is the first American coin to feature a real black female. In 2017 for the Mint’s 225^th anniversary a special $100 gold coin was issued that features an allegorical depiction of Liberty as a young black female.

She was a civil rights leader, teacher, a poet who served as Poet Laureate of the U.S., a Broadway actress and dancer and the recipient of an impressive array of awards that included, among others, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she received in 2011 from President Barrack Obama, Grammys and many other awards.

Angelou was born in 1928 into a troubled family in which her mother left when she was a young child and her father put her and her brother on a train when they were not much more than infants, sending them to live with their grandmother in Arkansas. As result of being raped as a child and later learning her uncles killed the rapist after she explained what happened, she was so traumatized that she did not speak for 5 years.

She began reading extensively and with the encouragement of a teacher, she eventually began to speak volumes in over 30 award-winning and bestselling books, including fiction and non-fiction, books of poetry and multiple memoirs – the most famous being I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She once said: “Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity.” She was working on her eighth memoir when she died in 2014.

On the 2021 Maya Angelou quarter, she appears on the reverse side with her arms spread very wide and lifted upward with her face turned slightly to the viewer’s left and leaning forward. Behind her appears a silhouette of a bird as it soars to the right with rays of sun appearing above. This image evokes her book Caged Bird as well as the way she lived her life and the sense of being uplifted that emanated from her and the words she used.

The design was created by Emily Damstra, who also designed the new reverse of the American Silver Eagle that debuted in 2021, and sculpted by Craig A. Campbell.

The obverse features the right-facing profile of George Washington, our first president, that is the creation of prolific sculptor Laura Gardin Fraser, the first woman to design a commemorative coin, and was originally recommended as the obverse design for the 1932 Washington quarter. The design, which depicts Washington very differently than the familiar one by John Flanagan that was used from 1932 to 2021, shows him looking very determined with his hair tied together at the back and with a sharp gaze.

On January 12 former First Lady Michelle Obama said: “What a fitting tribute to have Dr. Maya Angelou become the first Black woman on the U.S. quarter—she was a phenomenal woman whose comfort in her own skin made so many of us feel seen in ours.”

The remaining four quarters to be issued this year will depict physicist and first female American astronaut Sally Ride; Wilma Mankiller, the first principal chief of the Cherokee nation who was an activist for women’s and Native American rights; Nina Otero-Warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffragist movement and first women to serve as superintendent of the Santa Fe school system; and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American film star in Hollywood, who achieved global renown.

The new quarters will be sold by the Mint in bags and rolls at a slight premium and will also be issued in the various 2021 Proof and mint sets, including a set of the Proof coins that is expected to be available in February.

The American Women quarters have already received considerable mainstream media attention and led to remarks such as female news anchors saying they will need to start looking at their change. Over time, the coins will hopefully create more interest in collecting coins and bring in new collectors, as the state quarters did.