Pocketful of History

I checked out several books on American history from the library and this was one of them.

America started the phenomonem of the 50 State Quarters Program. Oh wait we copied it from Canada's Canada 125 program. They made such a great profit off of their commemorative 12 quarters, one for each province at the time, that we wanted to cash in on it too. So along came the idea of our 50 State Quarters Program which was unanimously and quickly voted into effect by our governement.

A little history. One quarter costs 20.2 cents to manufacture. It was estimated that the government would profit $808 million dollars from these quarters. In truth, by the end, it gained the government $6 billion dollars!

The book tells the history behind each state's quarter. It was interesting to read who came up with the ideas and how they did it. Some of the quarter designs that didn't make it were interesting, in an odd way, to read about too. For instance one Delaware design that didn't make it was said to be Lady Liberty holding a baby Delaware. In the book that design was regarded as looking, "terrible. I'll be honest with you- she looked like a sl*t showing up with a surprise at a family reunion." Nice huh. That's coming from the art teacher that created the chosen design.

They tell you the querks of the quarters too. For example, New Jersey's design is of Crossroads of the Revolution, pictured above, containing a picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware during the American Revolution. The problem is that the quarter depicts them in a boat that wasn't the right type of boat for that era, the Stars and Stripes carried by one man in the background hadn't been adopted until the following year, and the icebergs in the water would not have been found on the river. So obviously it isn't an accurate depiction yet the government chose it to represent the history of New Jersey. The majority of the quarters had discrepencies on them. I found that to be odd if they are trying to give us a short glance at our history through each state then why not make them accurate? I suppose to add flair and pizazz to them, like any story or image, they are better taken that way.

The book was a great short story of some history, not popular traditional American History but small bits of some history. It was fun to find the quarters and learn how the designs came about, but in the end I had to look elsewhere to brush up on my American History.