Washington Quarters (American Women)

The program calls for five new reverse designs per year from 2022 through 2025, each honoring a woman who has made significant contributions to American history, culture, or society. The selections are made by the Treasury Secretary based on recommendations from the Smithsonian Institution's American Women's History Initiative, the National Women's History Museum, and the Congressional Bipartisan Women's Caucus. The process is political by nature, and the choices reflect an effort to represent diversity across race, ethnicity, geography, and field of achievement.

The first five honorees in 2022 were Maya Angelou, Sally Ride, Wilma Mankiller, Nina Otero-Warren, and Anna May Wong. The designs varied in quality, as rotating-design programs always produce, but the Anna May Wong quarter in particular drew public attention and positive reviews for its striking Art Deco-influenced composition. The 2023 group included Bessie Coleman, Edith Kanaka'ole, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jovita Idar, and Maria Tallchief. The 2024 honorees were Pauli Murray, Patsy Takemoto Mink, Mary Edwards Walker, Celia Cruz, and Zitkala-Sa. The 2025 group rounds out the program with Ida B. Wells, Juliette Gordon Low, Vera Rubin, Stacey Park Milbern, and Althea Gibson.

Production follows the pattern established by the Statehood and ATB programs. Philadelphia and Denver strike hundreds of millions of each design for circulation, San Francisco produces S-mint coins for direct sale that are not intended for circulation, and both clad and 90% silver proofs are struck for collector sets. Mintages have generally been lower than the Statehood era but still in the hundreds of millions per design, reflecting the continued decline in cash usage and overall demand for circulating coinage. The S-mint NIFC coins, with mintages in the 300,000 to 500,000 range, are the scarcest pieces in the series.

The program does not have and will never have key dates in any traditional sense. The mintages are too high and the production too consistent for any individual coin to become genuinely scarce. Collectors focus on the silver proofs, the NIFC S-mint issues, and the occasional minor die variety. The series is a completion exercise rather than a rarity hunt, which is appropriate for a modern circulating program.

The American Women quarters have drawn more public engagement than the ATB program, partly because honoring specific individuals generates more emotional connection than honoring parks, and partly because the choices have occasionally been controversial enough to generate media coverage. The inclusion of lesser-known figures alongside famous ones has introduced many Americans to women they had never heard of, which was part of the program's stated purpose. Whether the quarters will have lasting numismatic significance beyond the silver proofs is doubtful, but the same was true of the Statehood Quarters, and those proved to be one of the most successful public outreach programs the Mint ever ran.

Fraser's obverse portrait has been well received, carrying a warmth and dimensionality that Flanagan's profile view never quite achieved. There is an argument that the better design won in the end, even if it took ninety years and the wrong sculptor got credit for most of that time.

Sources: R.S. Yeoman & Jeff Garrett, A Guide Book of United States Coins (Whitman Publishing, 2025); United States Mint Annual Reports (2022-2024); PCGS CoinFacts.