oa Image and Republican Sovereignty. Negotiating the Numismatic Iconography of the Early American Republic

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In 1792, George Washington refused to have his name and portrait placed on the proposed coinage for the fledgling United States. He is even said to have ordered the patterns shown to him and the dies that created them destroyed. Why? The answer lies in the European ideas about money’s role as a medium for communicating political messages. It also lies in the challenge of how to create a nation out of thirteen bickering former colonies. This essay explores the origins of eighteenth-century concepts of money and sovereignty, and the imagery appropriate for a republic.