Goodacre artwork donated to ANA

Among the items donated to the ANA by Glenna Goodacre’s business manager is, from top, the original plaster cast entry to the design competition, the final version, and a plaster of the design without Sacagawea’s baby.

The American Numismatic Association has announced that its Edward C. Rochette Money Museum was given items related to the production of the Sacagawea dollar from the studio of sculptor Glenna Goodacre.

The donation was made in late 2017. The material joins plasters, galvanos and other production-related objects from engravers and sculptors such as Gilroy Roberts, John Sinnock and Adam Pietz.

Sections of a May 4 blog at ANA’s website provides more details. For the full text and more images, visit online at www.money.org/blog/sacagawea.

As the blog relates, the story of the Sacagawea dollar began in 1997, when the U.S. Treasury realized the stock of Susan B. Anthony dollars (last struck in 1981) was critically low.

The subsequent United States Dollar Coin Act of 1997 required a new circulating gold-colored dollar coin similar in size to the Susan B. Anthony dollar. Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin created the Dollar Coin Design Advisory Committee responsible for coming up with a design with the following characteristics: it must not depict a living person, it must depict one or more women, and it must maintain a dignity befitting the nation’s coinage.

In July 1998, the committee recommended that Sacagawea appear on the new coin. The Mint requested design submissions and, in May 1999, the United States Commission of Fine Arts selected the final designs: the obverse by Glenna Goodacre and the reverse by Thomas D. Rogers Sr. The coins were officially released for circulation in 2000 and were produced until 2008. Goodacre’s Sacagawea design is still used today for the obverse of the ongoing Native American dollar series.

Goodacre is a native of Texas who graduated from Colorado College and established a studio in Santa Fe, N.M., where she spent most of her professional life. She retired in 2016 after a 50-year career and donated her tools, clay and equipment to the New Mexico School for the Arts. In 2008, her hometown of Lubbock, Texas, dedicated Glenna Goodacre Boulevard near Texas Tech University.