The US Mint wants you to help choose the pioneering women that will appear on its new quarters [View all]

[demmiblue]

Following coins that put the spotlight on Duke Ellington, the Tuskegee Airmen and Samoan fruit bats, a new run of quarters will call attention to pioneering American women.

It's part of the US Mint's "American Women Quarters Program," which will stamp circulating quarters with the faces of women who have made "significant contributions to the US." (George Washington's face will remain on the quarter's front, albeit with a new design.)

The first two honorees have already been chosen: esteemed poet Maya Angelou and gender-barrier-breaking astronaut Sally Ride.

The rest of the lineup will be decided by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen -- with input from the American public.

The National Women's History Museum is accepting submissions for the program, which was authorized by the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020. Under that measure, all of the women who appear on the coins must be deceased -- Ride died in 2012, while Angelou died in 2014. Otherwise, the criteria are fairly broad.

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/us-mint-american-women-quarters-submissions-trnd/index.htm

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