18, 1915, with Treasury Secretary William G. Burdette, writing in Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921, said Assistant Treasury Secretary William P. With the 25th anniversary of the Barber coins’ authorization coming up, the Treasury Department looked for ways to elevate the silver coins to the artistry of the already redesigned copper, nickel and gold coins. “These coins are almost unparalleled in modern issues for ugliness,” Elder declared. Noted coin dealer Thomas Elder, a member of the club’s executive committee, gave a presentation to the American Numismatic Society in January 1915 calling for a redesign. Brenner’s Lincoln in 1909), 5-cent piece (James Earle Fraser’s Indian Head in 1913), gold $2.50 and $5 coins (Bella Lyon Pratt’s raised-incuse Indian Head in 1908), and gold $10 and $20 pieces (Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ dramatic Indian Head and Striding Liberty in 1907).Īs early as 1914 the influential New York Numismatic Club began agitating for a change in the Barber designs. The design did not stand up well against the recently redesigned cent (Victor D. Barber’s coins shared a common and unloved obverse of Liberty wearing a freedom cap. Barber’s 1892 designs for the dime, quarter dollar and half dollar were getting long in the tooth and ripe for replacement. Remarkably, by 1947, when the Walking Liberty half dollar series ended, a half dollar was worth about $5.40 in today’s money, just 10 percent less than it was 27 years earlier at the end of World War I. The inflation was followed by equally horrendous deflationary periods at the beginning of the Roaring 20s and during the Great Depression. In addition, the Treasury lent generously to U.S. Outlays for troop training, weapons, and munitions increased fifteen-fold from 1916 to 1918. And once the nation entered the war, the Fed dedicated itself mainly to supporting the war effort,” Phil Davies of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis wrote in the online Federal Reserve History.Īt home, Davies reported, “Federal spending surged as the military mobilized. The young Fed was powerless to offset the gold inflow or halt the resulting inflation. “A large inflow of European gold to pay for U.S. wrote in a 1943 report to Congress on the state of the nation’s finances.Īs war consumed Europe after the July 28, 1914, assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Europe turned to the United States for armaments, food and manufactured goods. “The consumer found that food, fuel, shelter and clothing which cost a dollar in April 1916 had risen to almost $2 by 1920,” Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. World War I inflationary pressure also forced the end of the true dime-store era when S.S. Four years later, it was worth just $6.02. In 1916 a half dollar was worth the equivalent of $11.04 in today’s money. The Walking Liberty half dollar, which was released into circulation in early 1917, saw its purchasing power decline until the economy hit the skids in 1921. It jumped to 7.7 percent in 1916 and a 20th century record of 17.8 percent in 1918. The 1915 inflation rate was below 1 percent. Economic disruption at homeĪs the United States was preparing to enter World War I, the national economy was entering a five-year period of massive inflation. Three months after the first coins were released in January 1917, the United States entered World War I. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make.” “The world must be made safe for democracy,” he declared as America prepared to enter the war to end all wars. How much are Walking Liberty half dollars worth?Ī saddened Woodrow Wilson, who campaigned on the slogan “He kept us out of war” during the 1916 presidential election, asked Congress on April 2, 1917, to declare war on Germany. It depicts a full-length allegorical Liberty striding left, garbed in the stars and stripes of Old Glory. Weinman's obverse design for the Walking Liberty half dollar has been hailed as one of the greatest of all time. 1, Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking seven American merchant ships in the first two months. World War I raged across Europe and threatened to engulf the United States. The Walking Liberty half dollar, with its iconography of hope, was released at a dismal time.
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