DECEMBER 19
1921•Peace Dollar Design Approved and Revealed
2013•Woodrow and Edith Wilson Presidential $1 / First Spouse Set
The Peace Dollar Design Is Approved and Revealed to America
◆
On December 19, 1921, Anthony de Francisci's design for a new American silver dollar was announced as the winner of a remarkably fast national coin-design competition. President Warren G. Harding personally approved the models, and news from Washington introduced the country to the coin that would become the Peace Dollar.
The decision came with astonishing speed. Only weeks earlier, eight sculptors had been invited to submit designs for a silver dollar symbolizing peace after World War I. De Francisci, just 34 years old and far less established than several of his competitors, emerged as the clear winner. His radiant portrait of Liberty drew inspiration in part from his wife, Teresa, while his reverse attempted to express the difficult transition from war to peace.
But the December 19 approval did not end the story. Almost immediately, controversy erupted over a broken sword included in the proposed reverse. Critics interpreted it not as the destruction of war but as a symbol of surrender. With almost no time remaining in 1921, the Mint was forced to alter the design and prepare the new dollar for production before year's end.
Few American coins have gone from competition to presidential approval, public controversy, redesign, die preparation, and mass production so quickly.
A Silver Dollar for Peace
World War I had transformed the United States.
Millions of Americans had served in the armed forces, the nation's industrial economy had mobilized for war, and the country emerged from the conflict with a new international role.
Numismatists began arguing that the United States should mark the return of peace with a new silver dollar.
One of the leading advocates was prominent numismatist Farran Zerbe.
Zerbe promoted the idea of a circulating coin commemorating peace rather than a conventional commemorative sold primarily to collectors.
The American Numismatic Association supported the concept.
A silver dollar seemed particularly appropriate because the denomination was already being produced in enormous numbers.
The Morgan Dollar Had Returned
The Morgan Dollar had originally been struck from 1878 through 1904.
Production resumed in 1921 because the Pittman Act required the government to replace millions of silver dollars that had previously been melted.
By 1921, however, George T. Morgan's design was more than four decades old.
Federal law allowed the Treasury to change a coin design after it had been in use for at least 25 years without obtaining new congressional authorization.
Legislation specifically authorizing a Peace Dollar was proposed but did not become law.
That did not prevent the Treasury from acting.
Because the Morgan Dollar design had long exceeded the 25-year threshold, Treasury officials could approve a new design administratively.
The path was open for a competition.
The Commission of Fine Arts helped organize the effort.
Its members wanted a design worthy of the end of the Great War and the hope for a more peaceful international order.
The competition would be invitation-only and extraordinarily compressed.
The artists had little time to conceive and model a major United States coin.
A special competition circular dated November 23, 1921 invited eight sculptors to participate.
The field included some of America's most accomplished medallic and coinage artists.
Among them were Victor David Brenner, designer of the Lincoln cent; Hermon A. MacNeil, designer of the Standing Liberty quarter; and other respected sculptors including Chester Beach, Henry Hering, Robert Aitken, Robert Tait McKenzie, John Flanagan, and Anthony de Francisci.
Anthony de Francisci was 34 years old.
Born in Palermo, Sicily, he had immigrated to the United States as a child and developed his career as a sculptor and medalist.
Compared with some competitors, his national reputation was modest.
Brenner and MacNeil had already created major circulating coin designs.
De Francisci nevertheless produced the submission that captured the Commission's imagination.
The artists were given only a matter of weeks.
There was no leisurely multi-year design process.
The government wanted the new dollar struck before 1921 ended.
Every stage—competition, selection, approval, modeling, engraving, die manufacture, and coinage—was compressed into an extraordinary schedule.
Liberty Needed a Face
Competition requirements called for Liberty on the obverse.
De Francisci needed to transform an abstract national ideal into a convincing human portrait.
He did not have time for an extensive professional-model search.
His wife, Teresa Cafarelli de Francisci, became an important source of inspiration.
Teresa had immigrated to the United States from Italy as a child.
A famous family story later connected her arrival in New York Harbor with the Statue of Liberty, whose image supposedly fascinated the young immigrant.
Whether every detail of that later story can be verified or not, Teresa unquestionably played a role in Anthony's development of the Peace Dollar portrait.
De Francisci himself later explained that Liberty was not intended as a literal portrait of his wife.
He used aspects of Teresa's features while creating an idealized composite image.
The distinction matters.
Teresa was a model and inspiration, but the finished figure represented Liberty rather than an individual woman.
Accounts of the modeling sessions describe de Francisci opening a studio window so Teresa's hair could move freely in the air.
The resulting Liberty has an energetic, wind-swept quality unlike the restrained classical portraits of many earlier American coins.
Her radiating crown adds to the sense of dawn and renewal.
The portrait looked distinctly modern in 1921.
Liberty faces left with hair streaming backward and a crown of rays extending behind her head.
The image suggests movement rather than stillness.
It was an appropriate visual language for a country emerging from war and entering the 1920s.
On December 19, the winning design was announced.
Historical accounts record that President Warren G. Harding personally approved de Francisci's models.
Contemporary Washington dispatches spread news that the new silver dollar design had been selected and that the Mint expected coins to appear before the end of the year.
One colorful contemporary account describes Harding closely examining de Francisci's Liberty.
The president reportedly objected to what appeared to be a small dimple in Liberty's chin.
De Francisci modified the model, producing the “dimpleless” Liberty preferred by Harding.
The anecdote illustrates how directly the president participated in the final review.
Presidential Approval Was Unusual but Appropriate
Presidents had influenced American coin designs before.
Theodore Roosevelt's collaboration with Augustus Saint-Gaudens had transformed American coinage little more than a decade earlier.
Harding's involvement was less sweeping, but the Peace Dollar carried national symbolism important enough to receive White House attention.
Press reports dated December 19 announced de Francisci's victory.
The public learned that the United States was about to receive a new silver dollar commemorating peace.
But the images and descriptions also exposed a problem.
The proposed reverse included a broken sword.
De Francisci's reverse symbolism was intended to communicate the end of war.
An eagle was associated with a broken sword—an implement of warfare rendered useless.
To the artist, the destruction of the weapon represented peace.
To many Americans, it meant something very different.
Veterans and other critics argued that a broken sword traditionally symbolized surrender or military defeat.
The United States had not lost World War I.
Why, they asked, should a national coin display imagery that could be interpreted as capitulation?
The criticism became intense almost immediately.
Historical accounts describe telegrams and protests reaching Washington after the proposed design became known.
The government had intended the coin to celebrate victorious peace.
Instead, one element threatened to make the new dollar politically embarrassing before a single circulation coin had been released.
The calendar made the controversy especially difficult.
December 19 left fewer than two weeks before the end of 1921.
The Mint intended to strike the new dollars with a 1921 date.
A completely new competition was impossible.
The reverse had to be corrected immediately.
George T. Morgan, whose Morgan Dollar was being replaced, was now Chief Engraver of the United States Mint.
He became deeply involved in translating de Francisci's models into workable coinage dies and dealing with the reverse controversy.
It was a remarkable transition: the designer of the old dollar helped bring its successor into production.
The offending sword disappeared from the final circulating design.
The adopted reverse shows an eagle at rest on a mountaintop, holding an olive branch and looking toward rays of a rising sun.
The single word “PEACE” appears prominently below.
The final composition is calm rather than martial.
The Eagle Faces the Dawn
The reverse became one of the most evocative designs in American coinage.
The eagle is not attacking, flying, or spreading its wings.
It rests.
Beyond it, sunlight rises over the horizon.
The imagery suggests the beginning of a new era after the destruction of war.
“PEACE” is perhaps the most important inscription on the design.
Few circulating United States coins state their commemorative purpose so directly.
The word transforms the dollar from a simple denomination into a national statement.
Although Harding approved the selected models on December 19, formal Treasury approval continued through the following day as officials moved the design into production.
This distinction explains why some official Mint histories broadly describe Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's approval as occurring in December 1921 while detailed contemporary chronologies identify December 19 as the competition announcement and presidential approval date.
Winning a design competition did not produce coins automatically.
The sculptor's large models had to be translated into hubs and dies capable of striking silver dollars.
Relief, lettering, spacing, rim dimensions, and mechanical requirements all had to work under tremendous time pressure.
The first Peace Dollars were produced in unusually high relief.
The sculptural treatment gave the 1921 issue a distinctive appearance.
But high relief made mass production difficult.
Dies wore rapidly, and obtaining a complete strike could be challenging.
Despite the frantic schedule, the Philadelphia Mint succeeded.
By the end of December, it had struck 1,006,473 Peace Dollars dated 1921.
The achievement is remarkable considering that the winning design had only been publicly announced on December 19.
America therefore produced two major silver-dollar types in 1921.
Morgan Dollars had been struck earlier in the year at Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco.
Then, during the final days of December, Philadelphia began striking de Francisci's new Peace Dollar.
One year became the dividing line between two iconic series.
1921 Peace Dollars Become a One-Year Type
The high-relief design proved difficult to manufacture efficiently.
For 1922, Mint officials lowered the relief.
That makes the regular 1921 Peace Dollar visually and technically distinct from most later issues.
Collectors now treat it as an essential one-year high-relief type.
Peace Dollars were struck from 1921 through 1928 and again in 1934 and 1935.
Production occurred at Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco.
The series became one of the most recognizable silver-dollar designs in American history.
The rushed 1921 production was only the beginning.
Nearly 25 million additional Peace Dollars were produced within roughly the next six months as the government continued replacing silver dollars melted under the Pittman Act.
The experimental rush of December became industrial-scale coinage.
The Peace Dollar has a special connection to the collecting community.
The campaign for a peace coin was strongly promoted by numismatists, particularly Farran Zerbe and the American Numismatic Association.
Collectors were not merely preserving the coin after its creation; they helped inspire the idea.
The de Franciscis also give the Peace Dollar a compelling American story.
Anthony and Teresa were immigrants from Italy.
Anthony's artistic interpretation of Liberty became one of the nation's most famous coin portraits.
Teresa's features helped shape an allegory of American freedom carried on millions of silver dollars.
De Francisci's victory becomes even more impressive when the competitors are considered.
Victor D. Brenner had created the Lincoln cent.
Hermon MacNeil had created the Standing Liberty quarter.
John Flanagan would later design the Washington quarter.
Yet the Commission chose the younger de Francisci.
The episode demonstrates that coin designs are interpreted by the public, not just by artists.
De Francisci could intend the broken sword to mean the destruction of warfare.
Veterans could see the same object and interpret surrender.
Once a symbol appears on national money, its meaning cannot be controlled entirely by its creator.
A circulating coin reaches millions of people.
It can carry political ideals, national identity, historical memory, and government authority into ordinary transactions.
That made the reverse controversy more than an artistic disagreement.
The Treasury was deciding what message the United States would literally place in people's hands.
The Final Message Was Unmistakable
The revised reverse avoided ambiguity.
An olive branch symbolized peace.
The rising sun suggested a new beginning.
The resting eagle retained national strength without aggression.
And the word “PEACE” stated the purpose directly.
The Peace Dollar disappeared from production after 1935, but it never disappeared from American numismatic culture.
Collectors treasured the series for its silver content, large format, history, and distinctive design.
The 1921 high-relief issue became especially desirable.
In 2021, the United States Mint commemorated the centennial of the Morgan-to-Peace Dollar transition by issuing new Morgan and Peace silver dollars.
The modern program demonstrated how enduring de Francisci's design had become.
A coin created in a frantic few weeks in 1921 remained culturally powerful one hundred years later.
The Peace Dollar story contains many important dates.
There was the earlier campaign for a peace coin.
There was the November competition.
There were the final December production days.
But December 19 is the moment the winning design emerged publicly and received presidential approval.
On December 19, 1921, Anthony de Francisci's Peace Dollar design was announced as the winner of a competition involving some of America's leading sculptors.
President Warren G. Harding personally approved the models.
The country learned that its familiar Morgan Dollar was about to give way to a new coin commemorating peace after World War I.
The announcement immediately triggered controversy over the proposed broken sword, forcing officials to revise the reverse while the Mint raced to produce the new dollars before December ended.
Against extraordinary deadlines, the effort succeeded. More than one million high-relief Peace Dollars were struck before the end of 1921.
The winning artist was a 34-year-old immigrant who had drawn inspiration from his immigrant wife. He defeated designers responsible for some of America's most famous coins and created an image that would survive for generations.
December 19 was therefore not merely the day another coin design received approval.
It was the day America first learned the face of the Peace Dollar.
ALSO ON THIS DAY
2013 — Woodrow and Edith Wilson Presidential $1 / First Spouse Set — The Mint opened sales for the Woodrow Wilson Presidential $1 Coin and Edith Wilson First Spouse Medal Set.