GO WEST, YOUNG MAN!
Surprisingly, the one-gramme, five-cent nickel that collectors know and love wasn’t the first coin to be called ‘nickel’. That honour goes to the Indian Head penny which had the same nickname for the same reason: it was made from a copper-nickel alloy. The first five-cent pieces were known as ‘half dimes’ and made of silver. All the changed in 1866. Currency containing precious metals has always been hoarded as insurance against bad times, but by the end of the US Civil War, the problem had become so bad that there was a serious shortage of small denomination coins. The new nickels effectively stopped this practice. However, although the choice of nickel was a patriotic one, supporting the burgeoning US nickel industry, the metal was notoriously brittle and difficult to strike, leading to poor definition coins. The first designs were also contentious, as many felt that the thirteen stars on the Shield Nickels looked too similar to the Confederate flag.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the image which replaced these controversial reverses positively screamed patriotism: Lady Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was presented by the people of France to the United States in 1886 to mark the nation’s centennial. It’s not certain if the Liberty Head nickels (which appeared in 1883) were inspired by early designs for Lady Liberty (initial sculpts were made in 1876) but the fact that both ladies have a similarly stern expression, suggests some link.
This classic image remained on the coin until 1913 when President Roosevelt ordered a redesign. The choice of native American images for both the obverse (the ‘Indian Head’) and the reverse (a bison) is interesting. It speaks of a maturing nation: comfortable enough in its skin to celebrate all aspects of its culture, not merely those which began with the arrival of the white man. It also speaks of a nostalgia for a rapidly vanishing way of life and perhaps, too, a positive change in attitudes towards the Native Americans (although, shockingly, it still took until 1924 for them to be granted full citizenship).
Change came again in 1938 and, this time, the chosen image(s) celebrated of one of America’s founding fathers: Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson could well be described as the ideal President, scholar, artist, linguist and one of the principal authors of the Declaration of Independence. Monticello, his Virginian home, appears on the reverse of the coin, and fittingly so. This superb residence was designed by Jefferson himself and has since been made into a World Heritage Site.
The Jefferson link continues with the most recent additions to the nickel story, the Westward Journey series. These celebrate key moments from Jefferson’s Presidency and, indeed, in the development of the US itself. The first of these new nickels appeared in 2004 and feature a version of the Indian Peace Medal which was commissioned for the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803-6). The second depicts the explorers’ boat. Jefferson had been a keen supporter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition which aimed to survey land that the US bought from France in 1803. (A sale which revolutionary France figured would both avoid war with the US and create a rival to British sea power.)
Lewis and Clark weren’t the first to make the crossing to the Pacific coast, but they were the first Americans to do so and their discoveries effectively opened up the West to pioneers. The 2005 reverses complete the tale. The first quotes Clark on first seeing the ocean (‘O! The joy!’), while the second features a bison, which were almost hunted to extinction to ‘clear’ Native land for settlers. With the return of the ‘Jefferson Nickel’ in 2006, the Westward Journey came full circle. Only time will tell if future nickels will be as evocative as those which have gone before, but one thing’s certain: they’ll always have an interesting tale to tell.
It may only be worth one twentieth of a dollar, but the tiny American nickel has a big tale to tell. A tale of politics, pioneers and national pride. Paula Hammond explains