OCTOBER 10
1978•Susan B. Anthony Dollar Authorized
1795•First Women Hired at the U.S. Mint
2025•Navy 250th Silver Eagle Proof Released
The Susan B. Anthony Dollar Becomes Law
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On October 10, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed the Susan B. Anthony Dollar Coin Act into law, authorizing a smaller one-dollar coin bearing the portrait of women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony. The legislation created the first circulating United States coin to portray a real, non-mythical woman.
Public Law 95-447 did more than change the face on America’s dollar coin. It reduced the dollar’s diameter and weight dramatically, retained the copper-nickel clad composition of the Eisenhower dollar, mandated Anthony’s likeness on the obverse, and required the reverse to depict the symbolic Apollo 11 eagle landing on the Moon.
The coin would not reach the public until 1979. Its first production strikes would not occur until December 13, 1978. But October 10 was the day Congress’s plan became law and the Susan B. Anthony dollar officially entered the future of American coinage.
Public Law 95-447
The legislation began as Senate bill S. 3036 in the 95th Congress.
The Senate passed the measure on August 22, 1978. The House acted on September 26, passing S. 3036 in place of related House legislation.
President Carter signed the bill on October 10.
The statute’s title was straightforward: the Susan B. Anthony Dollar Coin Act of 1978.
The law responded to a practical problem with the Eisenhower dollar.
The large Eisenhower coin had been introduced in 1971, reviving the circulating dollar denomination after a long absence.
But at 38.1 millimeters in diameter and 22.68 grams in its circulating copper-nickel version, the coin was bulky.
Mint Director Stella Hackel later described its size and weight as limiting its usefulness.
The Treasury wanted a dollar that was easier to carry and use in everyday transactions.
Congress Shrinks the Dollar
Public Law 95-447 changed the statutory specifications of the one-dollar coin.
The new diameter was 1.043 inches, or approximately 26.5 millimeters.
The weight fell to 8.1 grams.
That placed the coin physically between the quarter and half dollar and made it roughly one-third the weight of four quarters.
The dramatic reduction was central to the government’s hope that Americans would embrace dollar coins for routine commerce.
Despite the new size, the Anthony dollar retained the copper-nickel clad construction used for circulating Eisenhower dollars.
Its outer layers were copper-nickel bonded to a pure copper core.
The overall composition is commonly expressed as approximately 91.67 percent copper and 8.33 percent nickel.
Unlike the classic Morgan and Peace dollars, the Anthony dollar contained no silver.
It was a modern base-metal circulating coin.
Section 3 of the law made the most historically significant design decision.
It required the obverse of the new dollar to bear “the likeness of Susan B. Anthony.”
This was not merely a suggestion to the Treasury or a theme for an artist to interpret.
Congress specifically named the person who would appear on the coin.
That choice broke an important barrier in circulating U.S. coinage.
Women had appeared on American coins before 1979, but usually as allegorical or mythical figures such as Liberty.
Queen Isabella of Spain had appeared on an 1893 commemorative quarter dollar, but that was a special commemorative issue rather than a regular circulating coin.
Susan B. Anthony became the first real, non-mythical woman portrayed on a United States coin intended for general circulation.
The distinction is why the October 10 authorization remains a major milestone far beyond numismatics.
Who Was Susan B. Anthony?
Susan Brownell Anthony was born in Adams, Massachusetts, in 1820.
She became one of the most prominent American advocates for women’s rights and women’s suffrage.
Working closely with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other reformers, Anthony spent decades organizing, lecturing, petitioning, and campaigning for political equality.
Her name became inseparable from the movement to secure voting rights for women.
One of the defining episodes of Anthony’s life occurred in Rochester, New York, in 1872.
Anthony registered and voted in the presidential election, asserting that citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment protected her right to vote.
She was arrested, tried, and convicted.
The case became a national symbol of the legal barriers women faced in exercising political rights.
Anthony refused to accept the legitimacy of a system that denied women a political voice.
Anthony died in 1906.
Fourteen years later, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting denial of the right to vote on account of sex.
Generations of activists had contributed to that victory, but Anthony remained one of the movement’s best-known figures.
Placing her portrait on a circulating dollar transformed that history into something Americans could encounter in ordinary transactions.
The task of translating Anthony’s likeness into coinage fell to United States Mint Chief Engraver Frank Gasparro.
Gasparro had already designed the Eisenhower dollar and the reverse of the Lincoln Memorial cent.
For the new dollar, he created a right-facing portrait of Anthony surrounded by thirteen stars.
LIBERTY appears above, IN GOD WE TRUST to the right, and the date below.
Gasparro’s initials appear near the truncation of the portrait.
An Earlier Liberty Design Was Set Aside
Before Congress settled on Susan B. Anthony, Gasparro had developed a different concept for the proposed small dollar.
His Liberty design featured a flowing-haired female head inspired by classical American coinage.
Collectors know the concept today through patterns and historical discussions of the proposed “Liberty dollar.”
Congress’s decision to require Anthony’s portrait redirected the project from allegorical Liberty toward a specific historical American woman.
The reverse did not receive an entirely new theme.
Public Law 95-447 required a design emblematic of the symbolic eagle of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon.
Gasparro adapted the reverse he had already created for the Eisenhower dollar.
An eagle descends toward the lunar surface holding an olive branch, with Earth visible in the distance.
The imagery traces to the Apollo 11 mission insignia designed by astronaut Michael Collins.
The retained reverse created a visual bridge between the old large dollar and the new small one.
Dwight D. Eisenhower disappeared from the obverse, replaced by Anthony.
The coin’s diameter and weight changed dramatically.
Yet the Apollo 11 eagle continued.
That continuity emphasized that the new dollar was not a completely unrelated denomination but a redesigned successor to the Eisenhower dollar.
Although the Anthony dollar itself is round, Gasparro placed an eleven-sided inner border around both sides of the design.
The feature was intended to give the coin a distinctive appearance and aid recognition by touch and sight.
The polygonal border is one of the easiest visual characteristics to identify on the coin.
It also reflects how seriously officials took the problem of distinguishing a new small dollar from existing denominations.
The government’s solution did not work as well as hoped.
The Anthony dollar’s greatest practical problem was its similarity to the Washington quarter.
Both were silver-colored copper-nickel clad coins with reeded edges.
The dollar was larger and heavier, but not enough to prevent frequent confusion in quick transactions.
Many Americans saw the new coin as an oversized quarter rather than a convenient dollar.
December 13: The First Production Strike
Two months after Carter signed the law, the Mint reached the next major milestone.
On December 13, 1978, Mint Director Stella Hackel joined members of Congress, Treasury and Federal Reserve officials, and the news media at the Philadelphia Mint for the first production strike.
The coins bore the date 1979.
Accelerated production then continued at Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco in preparation for the public launch.
The Mint expected enormous demand.
Hackel announced that more than 500 million Anthony dollars were scheduled for production before the coin entered circulation.
Officials wanted a sufficient national supply so the public would encounter the new denomination everywhere at once rather than experience regional shortages.
That enormous production target reflected confidence that a smaller dollar would succeed where the bulky Eisenhower dollar had struggled.
The Anthony dollar also played an important role in Philadelphia mint-mark history.
Circulating Philadelphia Anthony dollars carried a P mint mark.
The letter P had first appeared on regular U.S. coinage during World War II on the 1942–1945 silver-alloy Jefferson nickels.
After the war, Philadelphia generally returned to leaving its circulating coins unmarked.
The Anthony dollar brought the P back in 1979.
The return of P on the Anthony dollar helped usher in a broader change.
Beginning in 1980, Philadelphia mint marks appeared on circulating denominations other than the cent.
That convention largely continues today.
Thus, the Anthony dollar influenced not only the history of the dollar denomination but also the modern way Americans identify where their coins were struck.
The Public Release in 1979
The Susan B. Anthony dollar entered public circulation in July 1979.
The Mint and Treasury promoted the new coin heavily.
Officials emphasized convenience, durability, and potential government savings.
A coin could remain in circulation far longer than a paper dollar, reducing replacement costs if Americans adopted it widely.
The economic logic was strong. Public enthusiasm was not.
Within months, merchants and banks were reporting resistance.
Consumers confused the coin with quarters, disliked carrying it, or simply preferred dollar bills.
Mint Director Hackel defended the new dollar and argued that Americans needed to change established habits.
But habits proved difficult to overcome.
Massive inventories began accumulating instead of circulating freely.
The Mint produced Anthony dollars dated 1979, 1980, and 1981.
By 1981, demand had fallen so far that production for circulation was suspended.
The coin had not achieved the broad commercial acceptance envisioned when Congress authorized it.
For many years, Anthony dollars survived most visibly in vending machines, transit systems, postal machines, and other situations where dollar coins were mechanically convenient.
The story was not over.
By the late 1990s, government inventories of Anthony dollars were being depleted while the new Sacagawea dollar was still being prepared.
Congress authorized additional Anthony dollars as a temporary measure.
The Mint struck them again in 1999, eighteen years after the previous production.
The revived issue became the final chapter of the Anthony dollar series.
The Sacagawea dollar replaced the Anthony dollar in 2000.
It retained approximately the same diameter but deliberately looked different from the quarter.
A golden-colored manganese-brass outer layer, smooth edge, and wider border helped distinguish it visually and tactually.
Those features directly addressed one of the central failures of the Anthony dollar.
In that sense, the next dollar coin was designed partly from lessons learned from its predecessor.
A Commercial Failure Can Still Be a Historical Success
The Anthony dollar never became the everyday replacement for the dollar bill that officials envisioned.
Yet judging it only by circulation success misses its larger importance.
It broke a gender barrier on circulating U.S. coinage.
It established the modern small-dollar size later used by Sacagawea, Presidential, Native American, and American Innovation dollars.
It helped restore the Philadelphia P mint mark to everyday coinage.
For much of U.S. coinage history, Liberty appeared as an idealized female figure.
By the twentieth century, presidents had replaced those allegorical figures on most circulating denominations.
The Anthony dollar introduced a different possibility.
A real American woman whose life had been devoted to expanding political rights could herself represent the national ideals traditionally associated with Liberty.
That conceptual change is one reason the coin matters even though its commercial career was brief.
October 10, 1978 marks the legal birth of the Susan B. Anthony dollar.
Public Law 95-447 shrank the American dollar coin from the cumbersome Eisenhower format to a compact 8.1-gram piece, required Susan B. Anthony’s portrait on the obverse, and preserved the Apollo 11 eagle on the reverse.
The first coins would be struck in December and released the following summer.
The public would ultimately reject the coin as an everyday replacement for paper dollars.
But the legislation signed that day permanently changed American numismatic history.
For the first time, Congress had placed a real woman at the center of a circulating United States coin—and millions of Americans would soon carry Susan B. Anthony’s portrait in their pockets.
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