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Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

African American History And Culture, American History, Exhibits, Dc, History, Science, Sidedoor, History Of The World, Society & Culture, The Smithsonian, Washington, Natural History, Pop Culture, Smithsonian, Exhibit, Tony Cohn, Zoo, National Museum, Air And Space, National Zoo, Art19, Museum, Postal Museum

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Money is power. But who's on our money - or isn’t - can be just as powerful. While Lady Liberty has graced American coins and dollars for most of our history, it wasn’t until the 1970s that a real woman appeared on a circulating American coin. But that's about to change. Congress recently authorized the creation of twenty new quarters featuring American women from history. But how do we decide whose likeness gets engraved in our national story? And who makes these decisions? We’ll follow the money to find out.

Guests:

Jennifer Schneider, former program manager at Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, current assistant registrar of outgoing and government loans at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Tey Marianna Nunn, former director of the American Women’s History Initiative at the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, current associate director for content and interpretation at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino

Ellen Feingold, curator of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

Joseph Menna, chief engraver at the United States Mint

Tim Grant, public affairs manager at the United States Mint

Dave Clark, supervisor of blanking annealing and upsetting at the United States Mint

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:13.2	I'm Lizzy Peabody.
0:14.2	You may not know this, but in the heart of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American
0:28.3	History, there is a locked vault. To get there, you take an elevator up or down, I can't really say which. A floor or
0:39.1	two or three to a hallway. and through a series of locked doors until you emerge.
0:47.0	Welcome to the vault of the National Numismatic Collection.
0:54.0	Here.
0:55.0	Holy smoke, yes, this is huge.
0:58.0	This room is the coin, largely coins, metals and orders.
1:02.0	Ellen Feingold is curator of the National Numismatic Collection,
1:06.4	housed here in this vault.
1:08.4	That is, well, it's like nowhere I've ever been
1:11.5	and that makes it kind of hard to describe.
1:13.4	I mean it looks like a mix between a garage, a gym like locker room, and a library.
1:22.1	You know those old locker a library. You know, those old locker room libraries.
1:25.0	Anyway, it's big and it's full of every different kind of money you can imagine.
1:31.0	The word numismatic usually refers to coins, paper money, and metals, and there's plenty of that in here.
1:37.6	But there are also things I did not expect to find.
1:41.2	These cabinets hold beaver pelts and ketsle bird feathers and elephant tails.
1:48.6	Why are bever pelts in the National Numismatic collection?
1:51.6	They were used in exchange in Early America, right?
1:54.5	It's an object of exchange.
	...

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