American Women Quarter Project

u.s. mint Dec 17, 2021

Listen up ladies and gents! To celebrate the 19th amendment, which was passed in 1920, the US Mint is searching for new designs to go on the reverse of any quarter dollars made between 2022 and 2025 from…YOU! The general public! According to the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, 5 quarter dollars will be minted each year until 2025, and they’ve already begun receiving recommendations as of March 2021.

The female faces that are going to be printed on the quarter dollars can be women who have “(contributed) to the United States in a wide spectrum of accomplishments and fields,” according to Public Law 116-330. It lists examples like science, art, civil rights, humanities, government, suffrage, abolition, and space. The only stipulation is that the woman must be dead. So far the U.S. Mint has selected only the women for the 2022 quarters:

Maya Angelou
Dr. Sally Ride
Wilma Mankiller
Nina Otero-Warren
Anna May Wong

How excited would these women of our past feel for being a part of something so historic! Since these five women have been selected, that still leaves 15 open spots for suggestions for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025. Any suggestions submitted will have to go through a couple different committees before being put in front of the Treasury secretary.

The coins will be minted in both copper-nickel and .999 fine silver as both Proof and Uncirculated coins, so they’ll be a great addition to an coin collection! The design of the chosen women will go on the reverse, or back, of the coin while the obverse, or front, of the coin will still be the east-looking face of George Washington.

For those of you coin buffs out there who’ve dreamed of designing your own coin, this may be a chance for you to live your dream! You can set your kid or grandkid or even great-grandkid on your knee, pull out the old coin collection, and show them the one with a great woman on the front that you helped make. If that’s appealing to you, you can mail in suggestions to:United States Mint, 801 9th Street NW, Washington, DC 20220 or email it to womenonquarters@usmint.treas.gov. Yeah, it’s as easy as that.

We hope to see if any of our 7k members take part in this project, and if you do, let us know! We’d love to see your designs or hear your suggestions for prominent U.S women.