How Did These Women Wow You?

The interest in story-driven coin designs keeps growing. For four years, 20 of them came from the women celebrated on quarters – nearly all of them for the first time in the mint’s history. Several I had studied in school. A few made headlines in my lifetime. Some I’d never ever heard of. Turns out, though, all blazed trails through American history with contributions worth knowing. Quarters turned out to be their circulating storyboards!

The Final Five in ‘25

If you don’t have a Girl Scout in the family, know that Juliette Gordon Low founded the groundbreaking leadership organization eight years before the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote. But a little-known fact is that Juliette didn’t let her loss of hearing she had endured since a teenager stop her from being successful.

With nearly 13 decades between them, Stacey Park Milbern didn’t let her muscular dystrophy stop her from become a compassionate advocate, starting when she was in high school. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stacey established the Disability Justice Culture Club to help disabled people cut off from power sources and affected by shelter-in-place orders. She was the first Korean-born person and the first woman in a wheelchair to be depicted on a U.S. coin.

Another crusader was Ida B. Wells, the fearless anti-lynching, pro-suffragist journalist who owned two newspapers in Memphis, TN. The investigative reporter meticulously documented cases of discrimination and fought for justice and equality for African Americans.

In the post-World War II era, Althea Gibson, a naturally gifted athlete, broke racial and gender barriers to become the first African American woman to win the Grand Slam in tennis. In 1963, she came the first Black female golfer to integrate the Ladies Professional Golf Association. 

Breaking gender walls in science was Dr. Vera Rubin, “the mother of dark matter”. Her career gave me the opportunity to look at all the women fascinated by the celestial skies that the mint has so far honored. I was surprised by the list; hope you are, too!

Native Women

Although smaller than a Kennedy half dollar, the quarter is notably larger than a nickel, so the field has more space for storytelling. The U.S. Women Quarter series brought attention to four women who had yet to be included on the Native American dollar series, now issued just for collectors.

Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller was on one of the first five quarters released in 2022. She was the first – and to date, the only – woman from the Cherokee Nation elected to lead residents on a reservation spanning 14 counties in Oklahoma, forced there from ancestral homeland in Tennessee in the 1830s. Her last name comes from an old Cherokee military title whose meaning also refers to the individual who looks after a community. Chief from 1985 to 1995, Mankiller implemented community-focused policies, built new housing and health centers, and improved the healthcare system for the Cherokee Nation.

The following year, Edith Kanaka’ole, a descent of Polynesians who settled the archipelago of islands what would become the 50th U.S. state of Hawaii was honored on a quarter. Rich in symbolism, her quarter’s design is a testament of her leading role in preserving Hawaiian culture and history during the 1970s, a period considered the Hawaiian Renaissance.

Then, in 2024, the mint paid tribute to Zitkala  Ša. Her life was by turns harrowing, inspiring, filled with publications that ensured her Indigenous culture was not forgotten, and devoted to getting the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act passed. It was an honor to research her life and put it into a meaningful perspective in this Heads & Tails blog.

One of Littleton Coin’s hallmarks as a company built by collectors for collectors is the value added when we created our Showpak® line of coin products in 2000. All 20 women quarters were given highlights, plus uplifting quotes attributed to them, for inserts into their individual holders. Here’s the one that lists the accomplishments of New Mexico suffragist Nina Otero-Warren who was honored on a 2022 quarter.

Quarters Past & Future                 

On January 13, 2021, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020. It authorized the mint to produce new designs on circulating coins from 2022 through 2030 and for three separate programs. The strikes would include Uncirculated, Proof and those with silver content.

U.S. Women Quarters were the first series. Reaching back 89 years to 1931, the mint chose from its archives the George Washington profile by sculptor Laura Gardin Fraser for a new obverse, specifically for this series. Up to that point, Fraser’s design had only appeared on the gold $5 coin issued to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Washington’s death in 1999.

Has the U.S. Women Quarter series piqued your collecting curiosity about Washington quarters? Littleton Coin has a club for that. In fact, we’ve recently updated that collector’s guide for the longest running coin series, second only to the cent. If you’re interested in expanding your women quarters to collect those issues minted before 2022 and those that will come in 2026 and beyond, see if the Washington Quarter Club strikes your fancy!

SOURCES

“U.S. Mint announces final 5 women as it finishes its quarters program in 2025.” The 19th. May 20, 2021. Accessed October 21, 2025. https://19thnews.org/2021/05/pioneering-women-new-quarters-coins/

Smithsonian Institution. “Women’s History is American History.” Accessed September 24, 2025.  American Women’s History Initiative