In July, 1998, Treasury Secretary Rubin announced the choice of Sacagawea for the new dollar coin, to replace the Susan B. Anthony coin.
Reaction to the choice has not always been positive. Rep. Michael N. Castle of Delaware organized to try to replace Sacagawea's image with that of the Statue of Liberty, on the grounds that the dollar coin should have something or someone more easily recognized than Sacagawea. Indian groups, including Shoshones, expressed their hurt and anger, and pointed out that not only is Sacagawea well known in the western U.S., but that putting her on the dollar will lead to more recognition of her.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune said, in a June 1998 article, "The new coin was supposed to bear the image of an American woman who took a stand for liberty and justice. And the only woman they could name was a poor girl recorded in history for her ability to beat dirty laundry on a rock?"
The objection was to replacing Anthony's likeness on the coin. Anthony's "struggle on behalf of temperance, abolition, women's rights and suffrage left a broad wake of social reform and prosperity."
Selecting Sacagawea's image to replace Susan B. Anthony's is ironic: in 1905, Susan B. Anthony and her fellow suffragist Anna Howard Shaw spoke at the dedication of the Alice Cooper statue of Sacagawea, now in a Portland, Oregon, park.
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Text copyright © 1999-2005 Jone Johnson Lewis .
