Eleanor Roosevelt Headlines Next 5 Women to Be on U.S. Quarters

On This Site

Current Events

Share This Page






Follow This Site

Follow SocStudies4Kids on Twitter

April 3, 2022

The U.S. Mint has completed its list of the next five women who will appear in the American Women Quarters Program. They are Bessie Coleman, Jovita Idár, Edith Kanaka'ole, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Maria Tallchief.

Depictions of the women will appear on the reverse of the 25-cent coins, to be released during a five-year program that begins later this year, with the release of quarters recognizing five other women.

Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman was a pioneering woman of the skies, making her mark in the first half of the 20th Century. She was at once the first African-American woman and the first Native American of either gender to earn a pilot's license. At that time in the United States, women did not have access to flight training programs. Coleman went to France (after taking a French language class) and attended the well-known Caudron Brothers' School of Aviation, in Le Crotoy, France. The International Aeronautics Federation issued her license on June 15, 1921. She spent another two months taking flying lessons from a German flying ace, a Captain Keller. She also counted among her instruction an advanced training course in aviation in France and another course of study at the Fokker Corporation in the Netherlands. She had met its namesake, the well-known aircraft designer Anthony Fokker, and had studied under him for a time.

Jovita Idar

Jovita Idár was a Mexican-American activist, journalist, and suffragist. A tireless advocate for education and civil rights, she made a name for herself as a journalist for two well-known crusading newspapers, La Crónica and El Progreso. She served as a nurse during the Mexican Revolution, joining a Red Cross-equivalent grown known as La Cruz Blanca, and was the first president of the League of Mexican Women. She also helped establish the First Mexican Congress. She later moved to the United States and campaigned for women's suffrage in that country as well.

Edith Kanaka'ole

Edith Kanaka'ole was an internationally acclaimed hula dancer, teacher, and composer. A long-time instructor at the University of Hawaii-Hilo, she founded the dance school Hālau o Kekuhi and was a staunch defender of the need to maintain Hawaiian language and culture among the native population. She helped to keep stories of her people and their culture alive at a time when others wanted to suppress those ideas and those stories.

Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most recognized people in the world for the latter half of her life. She became famous as the wife of a U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, but Eleanor charted her own path in life and added to her own legacy after her husband's death. An accomplished speaker, she routinely gave press conferences, beginning in 1940. She was also an adept writer and wrote a newspaper column, called “My Day,” that was syndicated six days a week nationwide for several years; in this column, she wrote about her daily activities and also campaigned for social issues that were not always in sync with her husband’s political priorities. Among her many outstanding achievements was the United Nations' adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Maria Tallchief

Maria Tallchief became one of America's most accomplished ballerinas, fighting against discrimination all the way through her career. A Native American, she refused to change her last name, as many people urged her in order to make sure that she could get new roles. She had many firsts in her career, including the first American to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet and the first American to perform at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. After a long and successful career, she retired from performing but continued dancing, opening the Chicago City Ballet and teaching a new generation of dancers everything she knew about performance and speaking out against discrimination.

A total of 20 women will similarly appear during the next four years.

Search This Site

Custom Search

Social Studies for Kids
copyright 2002–2024
David White