When #11 Was #1!

Remember the 1980s? It’s the decade that gave us MTV and hip hop. It also gave us shoulder pads, neon leg warmers, big hair, plus movies such as Nine to Five and Wall Street. Another sign of those times: The U.S. Supreme Court welcomed its first female justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, thanks to President Ronald Reagan.

But Sandra wasn’t the only woman to break the gender barrier on the federal level that decade. The U.S. Mint welcomed its first woman chief engraver. As we celebrate Women’s History Month, let’s take a look at the career of medal sculptor Elizabeth Jones, the 11th chief engraver since the first appointment in 1793; the first woman, and the last chief engraver-sculptor appointed by a U.S. president.

On the road to a new era

Elizabeth came to the U.S. Mint with a resumé that included study at the Art Students League in New York, a studio with numismatic gravitas. Gold coin designer and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Buffalo nickel designer and sculptor James Earle Fraser had taught there. Students who went on to design coins included A.A. Weinman and Laura Gardin Fraser.

The Montclair, NJ native wrote her next chapter in Italy. There, her focus switched from painting to sculpture because in “Rome, you’re constantly surrounded by sculpture, and after being there for a year or so, I found myself being drawn in that direction as an artist,” she told an interviewer.

Elizabeth was attending the Scuola dell’Arte della Medaglia, where Italy’s mint trains students in engraving and plastic modelling, and metal arts. When U.S. Mint Director Eva Adams – only the second woman appointed to that position – toured the Italian mint with an eye towards modernizing the U.S. facility in Philadelphia, Elizabeth served as translator.

“She asked me right then and there if I would come back and work in Philadelphia,” Elizabeth recalled. She politely declined. In 1964, she opened her own studio in Rome. Two years later she joined the American Numismatic Association (ANA). Six years later, in 1972, she was designated ANA’s Outstanding Sculptor of the Year and awarded its gold medal. Elizabeth became a charter member of the American Numismatic Society, which elected her a Fellow in 1990. She also worked on medal commissions from the commercial Franklin Mint, the University of Pennsylvania Art Museum, Johns Hopkins and Creighton Universities, the 1979 Nobel Prize Laureates, among many others.

Then fate came along on a 1980 Christmas trip to Washington, D.C. and the pending retirement in January 1981 of 10th Chief Engraver Frank Gasparro. Eva, no longer at the U.S. Mint, but still active in federal matters, reached out again, urging Elizabeth to work for the mint, but this time as chief engraver. And so, Elizabeth’s portfolio went to President Reagan for consideration.

Reviving a hobby

With support from Donna Pope, the incoming U.S. Mint Director that July – just the fifth woman appointed to the post – Elizabeth made history! Both Eva and Donna, appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents, respectively, attended her formal installation in October. It took place at the modern, and fourth, Philadelphia Mint building. Also there was New York Times numismatic columnist Ed Reiter, a subsequent contributor to Littleton Coin’s online library.

Elizabeth and Donna walked into a situation brewing among coin collectors for quite a while: new opportunities. The Classic Commemorative Coin Era ended in 1954. Also, design upgrades for circulating U.S. coins appeared to have stalled after the unsuccessful acceptance of the dollar coin honoring Susan B. Anthony.

Donna Pope instituted a number of programs as mint director, including the launch of the Modern Commemorative Coin Era in 1982 after the 28-year-lapse. And Elizabeth Jones’ submitted the design chosen to inaugurate the new series. It was a silver half dollar honoring George Washington on the 250th anniversary of his 1732 birth.

“…I decided instantaneously I was going to put him on a horse,” Elizabeth told Coin World. Her decision was a deliberate move away from standard profiles “to a younger-looking Washington astride a horse. He was such a famous horseman…portrayed in innumerable outdoor equestrian monuments throughout the country.”

Elizabeth returned to classical statuary for inspiration of her dramatic obverse design selected for the Olympics in Los Angeles. She paid homage to Discobolus by Myron, an Athenian sculptor from 5th century B.C. Her three successive shadow outlines echo the thrower’s movement. But at President Reagan’s request, she added the ’84 Olympics’ logo ‘Stars in Motion’.

“He insisted that the stars be placed with the Olympic rings as he said it was the official logo of the Los Angles Olympic Games…the stars had to be much bigger than they should have been because of the reduction process,” she explained in a Coin World interview.

We paired her silver commemorative dollar issued in 1983 with the one struck in 1984. The latter’s controversial obverse design depicted the two headless statues of athletes installed at the front of the Coliseum’s Gate 8. Both the statues’ and coin’s obverse and reverse were designed by acclaimed sculptor Robert Graham (sometimes known better as the late husband of actor Anjelica Huston).

One last noteworthy commemorative

Four years later, Elizabeth had another opportunity to lean into her classical influences when her obverse design for a 1988 Olympics $5 gold commemorative coin was chosen. Elizabeth created a two-thirds facing bust of Liberty as Nike, the goddess of victory, wearing a laurel wreath. It was a nod to the headdress conferred on winners of the original athletic games in Greece. She artfully placed the motto in god we trust on the ribbon that secured Nike’s wreath.

Of equal historical note, this $5 gold coin was the first official gold issue from the newly elevated West Point Mint – promoted, as it were, from its status as merely a bullion depository. The $5 gold piece carries the coveted “W” mint mark on the reverse that was designed by Marcel Jovine, an Italian-born American sculptor.

When Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, won the presidential election in 1988, Elizabeth, per custom, tended her resignation. She appeared to be a kind of administrative limbo for nearly three years, as President Bush didn’t reappoint her – or anyone else.* Her tenure officially came to an end on December 13, 1990. The following year, she received the ANA’s Farran Zerbe Memorial Award in recognition of her years of outstanding, dedicated service to numismatics.

In a thoughtful, retrospective blog on her career, noted numismatist Q. David Bowers remembered that in her time, Elizabeth Jones was a popular figure at conventions and gatherings that attracted collectors of coins, medals and paper money. “I recall that she was amused to be asked to autograph paper money as such had nothing to do with coins.”

But as the first female chief engraver in the men-dominated world of the U.S. Mint, the signature of Elizabeth Jones carried a worth that was peerless.

*NOTE: The position of chief engraver was one of five presidentially appointed positions either eliminated or transformed under legislation requested by the Clinton Administration in 1993, but never introduced and passed until the closing days of the 104th Congress in the fall of 1996, according to Coin World.

SOURCES

Bowers, Q. David. “Chief Engraver Elizabeth Jones.” From the Desk of Q. David Bowers April 15, 2021. Accessed December 20, 2023

Coin World Almanac, Eighth Edition. 2011. Amos Press Inc., Sidney, OH.

Deisher, Beth. “From The Memory Bank: Encounter leads to chief engraver. ” Coin World. Accessed November 4, 2024.https://www.coinworld.com/voices/life-changing-meeting.html

Gibbs, William T. “Monday Morning Brief for March 4, 2019.” Coin World. https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/monday-morning-brief-for-march-4-2019.html

Herz, Ray. “The Artwork of Medallic Sculptor Elizabeth Jones – Video.” Coin Week. May 22, 2015. https://coinweek.com/the-artwork-of-medallic-sculptor-elizabeth-jones-video-615/

McAllister, Bill. “Donna Pope’s Stint at Mint.” The Washington Post, August 8, 1991.

Reiter, Ed. “Learn About Collecting.” Read News & Articles; Authors. https://www.littletoncoin.com/shop/Ed-Reiter

The American Presidency Project. Ronald Reagan: 40th President of the United States: 1981‐1989. “Nomination of Elizabeth Jones To Be Engraver of the United States Mint at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” July 31, 1981. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/nomination-elizabeth-jones-be-engraver-the-united-states-mint-philadelphia-pennsylvania