The United States Mint announced the five women to be honored during the third year of their American Women Quarters™ Program.
Depictions of Patsy Takemoto Mink, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, Pauli Murray, Zitkala-Ša, and Celia Cruz will appear on the reverse (tails side) of the 2024 quarters.
"All of the women being honored have lived remarkable and multi-faceted lives, and have made a significant impact on our Nation in their own unique way," said Mint Director Ventris C. Gibson. "The women pioneered change during their lifetimes, not yielding to the status quo imparted during their lives. By honoring these pioneering women, the Mint continues to connect America through coins which are like small works of art in your pocket."
Authorized under Public Law 116-330, the four-year series of quarters celebrate women for their important accomplishments and contributions to the United States and its development.
U.S. Mint descriptions for the five American women honored in 2024 follow:
- Patsy Takemoto Mink was the first woman of color to serve in Congress. As a Member of Congress, she fought for gender and racial equality, affordable childcare, and bilingual education, most notably with the passage of Title IX, which was later renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act.
- Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was a Civil War era surgeon, women’s rights advocate, and an abolitionist. Walker often crossed battle lines to care for wounded soldiers. Captured by the Confederate troops as a suspected spy, she was held as a prisoner of war for four months. Walker is the only woman to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
- Pauli Murray was a poet, writer, activist, lawyer, and Episcopal priest, as well as a staunch advocate for civil rights, fighting against racial and sex discrimination. In 1966, she co-founded the National Organization for Women with Betty Friedan and other activists. Murray is regarded as one of the most important social justice advocates of the twentieth century.
- Zitkala-Ša (meaning "Red Bird"), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a writer, composer, educator, and political activist for Native Americans’ right to United States citizenship and other civil rights they had long been denied. She left her South Dakota home on the Yankton reservation at age eight to attend a boarding school run by white missionaries, where her native culture and traditions were prohibited.
- Celia Cruz (Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso) was a Cuban-American singer, cultural icon, and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. Known as "The Queen of Salsa," Cruz’s numerous honors and awards include five Grammy awards, a National Medal of Arts, and a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy.
Altogether, 20 unique depictions of American women will be celebrated on 2022-2025 quarters. Women honored in 2022 include Maya Angelou, Dr. Sally Ride, Wilma Mankiller, Adelina Otero-Warren, and Anna May Wong. Women featured in 2023 include Bessie Coleman, Edith Kanaka’ole, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jovita Idar and Maria Tallchief.
Public Law 116-330 requires that the Secretary of the Treasury select the women to be honored after consultation with the Smithsonian Institution’s American Women’s History Initiative, the National Women’s History Museum, and the Congressional Bipartisan Women’s Caucus.
Depictions of the woman featured on the coins are created by U.S. Mint artists and artists from the Mint’s Artistic Infusion Program with their eventual candidates designs reviewed by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) and the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA).
Obverses (heads side) of the quarters in the series share the same portrait of George Washington. The image was created by Laura Gardin Fraser as a candidate entry for the 1932 quarter.
Yet another stellar lineup. This series is exceeding even the high hopes I had for it!
I’m looking forward to the Celia Cruz quarter. Azucar!
Those who selected the honorees for 2024, and for the two years prior also for that matter, did such a good job that I would be hard pressed upon given the task to elevate any one woman above the others. They were each and every one of them exceedingly talented, immensely dedicated and quite clearly at the very cutting edge of progress for themselves as individuals and equally so for all women.
There’s still another year to go, 2025.
All the more to look forward to!
I love that I have never heard of most of these women. There is always room to learn something new and this program is doing an I credible job of that!
so when are they going to put martha washington on one of these?
That’s an interesting question, c_q, for at least a couple of reasons. The first is that as a representative of women in America in general her personal achievements don’t rank all that high. The other is that she already has the distinction of being the only woman to ever appear on a United States Banknote (twice) and she was the first woman to be honored with a postage stamp.
I still say there’s time for Amelia Earhart on a 2025 quarter. Time is limited but they must act fast!
And she has been on a U.S. postage stamp (1963).
You certainly have a very strong second from me in this regard, Antonio, both because I am an enthusiast in general regarding anything having to with human flight, and more specifically in Earhart’s case due to how very curious and mystifying I have always found her abrupt disappearance to have been.
And E-Bay presale for 3 roll Bessie Coleman set minimum around $100 up to well over $200, despite the fact there will be 5000 more rolls available this year. Guess it will be interesting to see it all plays out. I’m guessing the 2022 rolls will be going for premium prices now.
Tom, is that 5000 more rolls this year or 5000 more 3 roll sets?
3 roll sets(but if you ignore P/D rolls included in the 3 roll set), that is still 5000 more S rolls. or put another way, at 40 coins per roll, in 2022 305,600 s quarters were minted in total. in 2023 it has been increased to 505,600 in total. of course due to returns the final totals were slightly less This new total is actually more than the planned 2023 innovation dollar for P at 500,000 and D at only 454,000. for some reason the Mint’s production is less for D than P for the dollars. (Assuming of course I… Read more »
Thanks for the thorough and clear explanation, Tom; your time and effort is very much appreciated! As unfortunately more than just a footnote here, while 5000 additional sets may seem like a goodly extra supply of this particular release of American Women Quarters PDS Rolls in regard to their projected distribution among the individual collector population, there is however still a possible monkey wrench lurking in the works, as follows. With a Household Order Limit of 3 those 5000 additional 3 Roll Sets can conceivably be condensed into orders for all of 1666 customers, and that number of additionally available… Read more »
at this point, it is a moot point on the s quarters, they are probably sold out the rest of the year, though the following may happen. people who ordered 3 rolls in the hopes of making the big bucks on ebay may find the premium isn’t there and will then reduce or cancel their subscription, making some rolls available. time will tell.
My guess, Tom, for the eventual, i.e. longer-term scenario would be an initial all-around enthusiasm for the 3 Roll Sets while the premiums remain high followed by a gradual dimming of interest in the entire enterprise as the sales successes of Sets with the admittedly somewhat usurious surcharges begin to wane.
I’m curious to see how many rolls will get ‘returned’
However many rolls do find their way back to the Mint, Tom, you can almost be guaranteed they will be coming back from the larger, i.e. reselling/flipping customers and not from individual collectors.