The secret history of the first U.S. mint : how Frank H. Stewart destroyed and then saved a national treasure / Joel J. Orosz, Leonard D. Augsburger, foreword by Eric P. Newman
NMAH copy 39088019947779 Purchased from the NMAH Library Endowment.
Contents:
Introduction : The Declaration House : foreshadowing of the first mint's fate -- The man, the mint, and the masterpiece -- Frank Huling Stewart : the man who owned the first United States Mint -- "A very mean house" : the first United States Mint, 1792-1911 -- The Frank H. Stewart Collection : relics of the first United States Mint -- The Frank H. Stewart Collection : coins created at the first United States Mint -- Frank H. Stewart's commissioned artworks : Edwin Lamasure's Cradle of Liberty and Ye olde mint -- Frank H. Stewart's commissioned artworks : John Ward Sunsmore's Inspection of the first dies and Washington inspecting the first money coined by the United States -- Artworks inspired by Frank H. Stewart's commissions : Frank J. Reilly's Director of the first U.S. Mint inspecting initial coinage, Philadelphia, 1792 and Hy Hintermeister's Washington examining the first coin -- The fate of the Stewart Collection : Congress Hall, the National Park Service, and Rowan University -- The last days of Frank H. Stewart -- Afterword : The mint as it was, the mint as Stewart fixed it in memory
Summary:
Frank H. Stewart is both the hero and the villain in this remarkable tale ripped from the headlines of early 20th century Philadelphia. He was a high school dropout who wrote the definitive history of our nation's first coin factory. He was no art connoisseur, and yet he commissioned unforgettable paintings of the first U.S. Mint, by famous artists. A poor boy made good, Stewart bought the old Mint, labored to preserve it, and failed in the most dramatic way possible. Could his later acts of commemoration redeem his failures in preservation? The Secret History of the First U.S. Mint tells, for the first time, the full story of the paradoxical Frank H. Stewart and his self-appointed life's mission to celebrate an irreplaceable slice of our nations heritage. It is a tour-de-force work of scholarship that sets straight long misunderstood Mint history. This groundbreaking new book by award winning authors Joel Orosz and Leonard Augsburger is filled with dozens of sketches, paintings, and photographs of the first Mint that have been preserved in archival collections for decades, and have not been seen by living
