Object Number 2017.0043.005

Object Name

Medal

Category

Metals

Credit Line/Donor

American Textile History Museum

Creator (Role)

Adolf Alexander Weinman (Designer and maker)
1870-1952

United States Mint (Maker)
1792
The Mint was established by the U.S. Congress in 1792 with The Coinage Act. David Rittenhouse was appointed the first director by President George Washington and the Mint was erected in Philadelphia.

Place of Origin

Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mid-Atlantic, United States, North America

Date

1904-1904

Mark or Signature or Inscription or Label

1. Inscription; Obverse. beneath sun; "A.A. WEINMAN / FECIT" in small letters
2. Inscription; Obverse; 'UNIVERSAL EXPOSITIO[N] SAINT LOUIS * UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in low relief
3. Inscription; Reverse; "GOLD MEDAL / LOVISIANA PURCHASE / EXPOSITION" in low relief
4. Inscription; Obverse, exergue; "MCMIV" in low relief

Materials

Bronze; Gold-plated bronze

Dimensions (inches)

0.25 (H) , 2.75 (L) , 2.75 (W)

Dimensions (centimeters)

0.635 (H) , 6.985 (L) , 6.985 (W)

Object Description

Web - 12/07/2017

This triangular medal was designed as an award or premium for an exhibitor in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also called the Saint Louis World's Fair. The obverse imagery features two female figures described as Liberty or Columbia and as a Native American woman or a personification of Louisiana. "Liberty" wears a liberty cap and classical gown and holds a billowing United States flag as a cape to surround the shorter, nude woman with long braids holding a low drapery covered in a honey bee pattern. (The bee was an important religious and political symbol in antiquity as well as in France, long before it became the state insect for Louisiana and Missouri.) The reverse side of the medal features a bold bald eagle above two swimming dolphins likely representing the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and the perimeters of both sides are filled with stars and symbolic wreathes.