Lafayette dollar
The Lafayette dollar was a silver coin issued as part of the United States' participation in the Paris World's Fair of 1900. Depicting Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette with George Washington, and designed by Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber, it was the only U.S. silver dollar commemorative prior to 1983, and the first U.S. coin to depict American citizens.
Beginning in 1898, prominent Americans sought to erect in Paris a monument to Lafayette, a Frenchman who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Among these supporters was Chicago businessman Ferdinand Peck, whom President William McKinley chose as commissioner-general to the exposition. Peck made the monument proposal a part of the American plans for Paris, and appointed the Lafayette Memorial Commission to raise funds for it. A part of this fundraising was the one-dollar commemorative coin, approved by Congress on March 3, 1899.
Conjoined busts of Washington and Lafayette appear on the obverse. Barber stated that the bases for his work were a sculpture of Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon, and an 1824 medal of Lafayette by François-Augustin Caunois. For the reverse, he used an early sketch of the planned monument, designed by Paul Wayland Bartlett, whose last name appears on the base of the statue on the reverse. The coins did not sell out, and 14,000 were later melted by the United States Treasury. The Lafayette dollar is valued from several hundred dollars to tens of thousands, depending on condition.
Background
Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette was born on September 6, 1757, to a noble French family. When the boy was less than two years old, his father was killed at the Battle of Minden, making the toddler a wealthy nobleman. The young marquis married in 1774.In 1775, while on military duty in Metz, Lafayette received word of the American Revolution in the Thirteen Colonies. The young officer quickly came to believe that the American cause was noble. On learning that the Second Continental Congress lacked funds, Lafayette hired a ship at his own expense and in 1777 sailed for America, though he initially received a cold reception from the Congress. So many foreign officers had sought to be a part of the Continental Army that its commanding general, George Washington, asked that no more be engaged. Lafayette's application, which sought no pay, met with eventual success. Congress had received a letter from the American envoy to France, Benjamin Franklin, stating that Lafayette's family was wealthy and influential. Franklin urged Congress to accommodate Lafayette, and also keep him safe and out of the action lest his death harm the American cause.
Congress dutifully voted in July 1777 to commission Lafayette as a major general, and sent him to meet Washington. The two men formed a very close relationship despite a quarter-century difference in age. Franklin's wish to keep Lafayette safe was frustrated by the young man's desire to be where battles raged, and he was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777. France soon entered the war on the American side, and was instrumental in the victory. Lafayette helped lead the decisive Yorktown campaign, leading to the surrender of Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis alongside his entire army, which sealed the fate of the war in favor of the Americans.
Lafayette returned to France after 1781, a national hero in both countries. He returned to the United States in 1784, his last visit for 40 years. In France, he involved himself in politics, favoring a constitutional monarchy. He was given office and commands after the French Revolution, but was captured by the Austrians in 1792, remaining in captivity for five years. After Napoleon arranged his release, Lafayette remained on his estates and away from politics during the Emperor's rule. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1815, he again engaged himself in politics, sitting in the Chamber of Deputies.
In 1824, the American Congress voted unanimously to have President James Monroe invite Lafayette to return as the guest of the nation. The marquis and his son, George Washington Lafayette, arrived in New York City to mammoth celebrations. Over the next year and a half, Lafayette visited all 24 states. He was given innumerable honors and gifts, including land in Florida. The marquis returned to France in 1825, and died in 1834. One of only eight people to be made an honorary citizen of the United States, according to Arnie Slabaugh in his book on commemorative coins, "Lafayette became so popular and respected in both countries that the friendship he helped cement between the two nations has extended to this day".
Inception
In March 1898, a resolution was introduced in Congress for a commission to erect a monument to Lafayette in Paris on behalf of the United States. The bill passed the Senate, and hearings were held before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Chicago businessman and philanthropist Ferdinand Peck testified in support of the bill, which though favored by the committee was not considered by the House due to higher priorities during the Spanish–American War.Later in 1898, President William McKinley appointed Peck as United States Commissioner-General to the 1900 Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair to be held in Paris. Peck revived the Lafayette proposal as part of the American participation in the fair, and created a Lafayette Memorial Commission to supervise the monument project. The commission was to ensure that the monument was unveiled on July 4, 1900—both Independence Day and also United States Day at the exposition. On September 1, 1898, Peck appointed a number of prominent Americans to the commission, including Iowa Senator William B. Allison, Secretary of State William R. Day, Archbishop John Ireland, and Reverend Edward Everett Hale. The commission's officers included the treasurer, Comptroller of the Currency Charles G. Dawes, and the secretary, Robert J. Thompson.
Fundraising to build the Lafayette monument was a major component of the commission's work, and it sought to involve American schools and schoolchildren in the project. October 19, 1898—the 117th anniversary of Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown—was proclaimed the first "Lafayette Day" by 42 governors or commissioners of education of the states or territories. Although President McKinley did not issue a similar proclamation, he did praise the plan in a letter printed in the press. Special ceremonies in honor of Lafayette were observed in many schools, and pupils were called upon to donate cents in honor of the French patriot. A total of $45,858.30 was obtained from the events at the schools; those institutions were furnished, on the next Lafayette Day, with ornate receipts, signed by Dawes and meant as momentos to descend to posterity.
Another proposed means of paying for the statue was a commemorative coin. In early 1899, the commission sought enactment of legislation granting it an appropriation of $50,000 in the form of 100,000 commemorative half dollars, that could be sold to the public at a premium. Such a method had helped to finance the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Instead, Congress passed and McKinley signed on March 3, 1899, a civil appropriations bill that included provision for 50,000 silver one-dollar pieces to be granted to the commission. The bullion for the striking was to be purchased on the open market and was not to come from the Mint's remaining stocks acquired pursuant to the repealed Sherman Silver Purchase Act, though the Mint would not exhaust its inventory from that legislation until 1904. Congress placed a ceiling on the cost of the silver at $25,000. In the event, the United States Treasury bought 38,675.875 troy ounces of silver for $23,032.80. The designs were to be selected by the Mint Director, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury.
Preparation
Once the bill passed, Bureau of the Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber took personal charge of the project, seeking to avoid the delays and disputes that had marked the two previous commemoratives, the Columbian half dollar and the Isabella quarter. On March 24, 1899, Mint Director George E. Roberts wrote in a letter that the Lafayette Memorial Commission was contemplating having, on one side of the coin, a representation of the new monument. Barber responded the following day to Philadelphia Mint Superintendent Henry Boyer, referencing that letter and asking for a sketch of the monument.By April 12, 1899, the chief engraver had obtained from commission secretary Thompson a preliminary sketch of the monument—an equestrian statue by Paul Bartlett. Barber sketched other designs, including one with Lafayette's 1784 prayer for the prosperity of the United States. He also created one showing a standing figure of Lafayette, based on a statement by Thompson that they might omit the horse. Barber's concepts showing an equestrian statue for one side, and jugate heads of Lafayette and Washington for the other, would form the basis for the eventual coin. Roberts quickly approved Barber's sketch of the two heads, and without consulting the commission leaked the information to the American Journal of Numismatics, which printed it in its April 1899 issue.
On May 23, 1899, Barber wrote to Roberts that he planned to base the Washington bust on the well-known 1785 bust of the first president by Jean-Antoine Houdon, and upon an early medallic use of the Houdon bust, the 1786 "Washington Before Boston" medal by Pierre-Simon-Benjamin Duvivier. The Lafayette bust was to be based on an 1824 medal of Lafayette by François-Augustin Caunois.
Peck and other commission members were not satisfied with the design proposals, and suggested some of their own. Barber denigrated these in a letter to Roberts on June 8. Peck had proposed that only the faces of Washington and Lafayette be shown, with no depiction of the rest of the head. Barber stated, "I am of the opinion that the heads of Washington and Lafayette should be treated from the sculptor's standpoint, and every effort be made to represent them with a grandeur and dignity commensurate with the position they fill in the Nation's history, which certainly could not be done if they are to be shown peeping out of a half moon." At the instructions of Roberts, Barber went to New York and met with Peck over two days on June 14 and 15. Afterwards, Barber reported to the Mint Director, "I think we will hear no more of the Lafayette prayer" and that Peck now appreciated that the space available for a design, even on a silver dollar was limited, "and as it is the desire of the Committee to have the monument displayed, the prayer will have to find some other place". Although Barber indicated that the decision of the commission to represent the statue without its pedestal represented progress toward the point where he might engrave dies, "I learned in New York that the work of the sculptor must be submitted to a committee in Paris who will have entire charge of the monument, and the sculptor's work has to be changed in any and every detail until it meets the approval of this Committee of Frenchmen ... to me it looks as if it might be sometime in 1900."
On June 20, 1899, Barber submitted the final designs for the coin. They were approved by Director Roberts on July 1. This did not put an end to the wrangles over what should be on the coin: the commission wished to have the coins dated 1900, but have them to sell as early as possible in 1899. Secretary of the Treasury Lyman Gage insisted on the provision of the Coinage Act of 1873 that required the date of production to appear on the coins. In the end, the matter was compromised: the pieces were struck in December 1899, not distributed until the following month, and the inscription "Paris 1900" appears on the coins.