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Cincinnati Musical Center Half Dollar
The Cincinnati Musical Center half dollar or Cincinnati Music Center half dollar is a commemorative 50-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1936. Produced with the stated purpose of commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Cincinnati, Ohio, as a center of music, it was conceived by Thomas G. Melish, a coin enthusiast who controlled the group which was allowed to buy the entire issue from the government, and who resold the pieces at high prices. Congress approved legislation for the coin on March 31, 1936, authorizing 15,000 pieces to be struck at the three mints then in operation. Melish had hired sculptor Constance Ortmayer to design the coin, but the Commission of Fine Arts refused to recommend the designs. Members objected to the depiction of Stephen Foster on the obverse, finding no connection between Foster, who died in 1864, and the supposed anniversary. Nevertheless, the designs were approved by the Bureau of the Mint, and 5,000 sets from the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Dollar
The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it into 100 cents, and authorized the minting of coins denominated in dollars and cents. U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green color. The monetary policy of the United States is conducted by the Federal Reserve System, which acts as the nation's central bank. The U.S. dollar was originally defined under a bimetallic standard of (0.7735 troy ounces) fine silver or, from 1837, fine gold, or $20.67 per troy ounce. The Gold Standard Act of 1900 linked the dollar solely to gold. From 1934, it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other means of payment used to resolve debts and exchange goods. The earliest forms of money used by people are categorised by collectors as "Odd and Curious", but the use of other goods in barter exchange is excluded, even where used as a circulating currency (e.g., cigarettes or instant noodles in prison). As an example, the Kyrgyz people used horses as the principal currency unit, and gave small change in lambskins; the lambskins may be suitable for numismatic study, but the horses are not. Many objects have been used for centuries, such as cowry shells, precious metals, cocoa beans, large stones, and gems. Etymology First attested in English 1829, the word ''numismatics'' comes from the adjective ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nellie Tayloe Ross
Nellie Davis Tayloe Ross (November 29, 1876 – December 19, 1977) was an American educator and politician who served as the 14th governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927, and as the 28th and first female director of the United States Mint from 1933 to 1953. She was the first woman to serve as governor of a U.S. state, and remains the only woman to have served as governor of Wyoming. Ross was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, to James Wynns Tayloe, a native of Tennessee, and Elizabeth Blair Green, who owned a plantation on the Missouri River. Her family moved to Miltonvale, Kansas in 1884, and she graduated from Miltonvale High School in 1892. She attended a teacher-training college for two years and taught kindergarten for four years. On September 11, 1902, Ross married William B. Ross, whom she had met when visiting relatives in Tennessee in 1900. William B. Ross was governor of Wyoming from 1923 to his death on October 2, 1924. Ross succeeded her late husband's successor Frank Luc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Margaret O'Reilly
Mary Margaret O'Reilly (October 14, 1865 – December 6, 1949) was an American civil servant who served as the assistant director of the United States Bureau of the Mint from 1924 until 1938. One of the United States government's highest-ranking female employees of her time, she worked at the Mint for 34 years, during which she often served as acting director during the Mint Director's absence. O'Reilly was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to an Irish immigrant family. Growing up in that state, she left school around the age of 14 to help support both her widowed mother and her siblings. Likely starting work in the local textile mills, she gained clerical training at night school before working as a clerk in Worcester for eighteen years. In 1904, O'Reilly gained a position at the Mint Bureau, resulting in a move to Washington, D.C. She rose rapidly in the bureau's hierarchy – an unusual feat for a woman at that time – and was frequently called upon to te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Director Of The United States Mint
The director of the United States Mint is a presidential appointment that requires a Senate confirmation. The incumbent is Ventris Gibson, who became director of the Mint on June 22, 2022, after serving in acting capacity. When the position of the director is vacant, the senior career (non-political) official of the mint serves as the acting director. Until the appointment of Ryder as director, the Mint had been without an official director since the resignation of Edmund C. Moy in 2011. Richard A. Peterson succeeded Moy. Peterson served between January 2011 and March 2017. The longest serving director was Nellie Ross. Ross, who had earlier been the first female governor in American history while serving the state of Wyoming, was director from 1933 until 1953. In July 2015, Matthew Rhett Jeppson was nominated by President Barack Obama to become the Mint's 39th director and was given the temporary title of principal deputy director. However, the nomination was never confirm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Breen
Walter Henry Breen Jr. (September 5, 1928 – April 27, 1993) was an American numismatist, writer, and convicted child sex offender; as well as the husband of author Marion Zimmer Bradley. He was known among coin collectors for writing ''Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins''. "Breen numbers", from his encyclopedia, are widely used to attribute varieties of coins. He was also known for activity in the science fiction fan community and for his writings in defense of pederasty as a NAMBLA activist. Early life Breen was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Walter Henry Breen Sr. and Mary Helena (Nellie) Brown Mehl. He spent the first several years of his life in Texas with his parents. At the time they met, both of Walter's parents were married to other people and living next door to each other in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Walter's father changed his own name from Walter H. Green to Breen after abandoning his wife and children to run away with Walt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the leader of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. He built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended in victory shortly after he died in office. Born into the prominent Roosevelt family in Hyde Park, New York, he graduated from both Groton School and Harvard College, and attended Columbia Law Scho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cincinnati May Festival
The Cincinnati May Festival is a two-week annual choral festival, held in May in Cincinnati, Ohio, US. History The festival's roots go back to the 1840s, when '' Saengerfests'' were held in that city, bringing singers from all over the United States and abroad to perform large scale classical works of the day. In ''A City That Sings,'' we find a description of Cincinnati in the late 1800s: "In the final decades of the nineteenth century Cincinnati cemented its position as one of America's cultural leaders with the founding of the still flourishing May Festival (1873), the Cincinnati Art Museum (1886) and its neighbor in Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Art Academy (1887), and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1895). Singing societies were very popular in the nineteenth century and the tradition was no different in Cincinnati. Both the English and German societies were evident. As a rule, the differences between the two national choral traditions were in language, origin, composition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States House Committee On Coinage, Weights And Measures
The Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures (established as the Committee on a Uniform System of Coinage, Weights, and Measures) was a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives from 1864 to 1946. History In 1864, the Committee on a Uniform System of Coinage, Weights, and Measures was established to relieve the House Committee on Ways and Means of part of its workload. The name was shortened to Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures in 1867. In 1921, the portion of the committee's jurisdiction relating to stabilization of the currency was transferred to the House Committee on Banking and Currency. Under the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, the coinage portion of its jurisdiction was also transferred to that committee, while its weights and measures jurisdiction was transferred to the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce The Committee on Energy and Commerce is one of the oldest standing committees of the United States House of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melish Picture (1910–1986), American Episcopalian and social leader
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Melish is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *John Melish (1771–1822), Scottish mapmaker * Thomas G. Melish (1876–1948), American entrepreneur and coin collector * William Bromwell Melish (1852–1927), American businessman and Freemason leader *William Howard Melish The Reverend William Howard Melish (11 May 1910 – 15 June 1986) was an 20th-century American Episcopalian and social leader, driven from his Brooklyn church in the 1950s during McCarthyism in a decade-long controversy by the Episcopalian bishop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oregon Trail Memorial Half Dollar
The Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar was a fifty-cent piece struck intermittently by the United States Bureau of the Mint between 1926 and 1939. The coin was designed by Laura Gardin Fraser and James Earle Fraser, and commemorates those who traveled the Oregon Trail and settled the Pacific Coast of the United States in the mid-19th century. Struck over a lengthy period in small numbers per year, the many varieties produced came to be considered a ripoff by coin collectors, and led to the end, for the time, of the commemorative coin series. Ohio-born Ezra Meeker had traveled the Trail with his family in 1852 and spent the final two decades of his long life before his death in 1928 publicizing the Oregon Trail, that it should not be forgotten. In 1926, at age 95, he appeared before a Senate committee, requesting that the government issue a commemorative coin that could be sold to raise money for markers to show where the Trail had been. The coin had originally been thought of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Numismatic Association
The American Numismatic Association (ANA) is an organization founded in 1891 by George Francis Heath. Located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, it was formed to advance the knowledge of numismatics (the study of coins) along educational, historical, and scientific lines, as well as to enhance interest in the hobby. The ANA has more than 24,000 individual members who receive many benefits, such as discounts, access to website features, and the monthly journal ''The Numismatist''. The ANA's Colorado Springs headquarters houses its administrative offices, library, and money museum. The ANA received a federal charter from the United States Congress in 1912. A board of governors is in charge of the ANA. Numerous advisory committees help to operate it properly. The ANA has a Young Numismatists program intended to promote interest among youth. The ANA has held annual conventions throughout the nation in most years since 1891, with two per year since 1978. The Chester L. Krause Memoria ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
