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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;furryfrog02, post: 7296074, member: 41219&quot;]This is from wikipedia:</p><p><br /></p><p><font size="5"><b>Design[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indian_Head_cent&amp;action=edit&amp;section=2" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indian_Head_cent&amp;action=edit&amp;section=2" rel="nofollow">edit</a>]</b></font></p><p>Longacre advocated his Indian Head design in an August 21, 1858, letter to Snowden:</p><p><br /></p><p>From the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keweenaw_Peninsula" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keweenaw_Peninsula" rel="nofollow">copper shores of Lake Superior</a>, to the silver mountains of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potos%C3%AD" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potos%C3%AD" rel="nofollow">Potosi</a> from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwe" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwe" rel="nofollow">Ojibwa</a> to the Araucanian, the feathered tiara is as characteristic of the primitive races of our hemisphere, as the turban is of the Asiatic. Nor is there anything in its decorative character, repulsive to the association of Liberty ... It is more appropriate than the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_cap" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_cap" rel="nofollow">Phrygian cap</a>, the emblem rather of the emancipated slave, than of the independent freeman, of those who are able to say &quot;we were never in bondage to any man&quot;. I regard then this emblem of America as a proper and well defined portion of our national inheritance; and having now the opportunity of consecrating it as a memorial of Liberty, &#039;our Liberty&#039;, American Liberty; why not use it? One more graceful can scarcely be devised. We have only to determine that it shall be appropriate, and all the world outside of us cannot wrest it from us.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow25-12" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow25-12" rel="nofollow">[9]</a></p><p><br /></p><p>By numismatic legend, the facial features of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_(goddess)" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_(goddess)" rel="nofollow">the goddess Liberty</a> on the obverse of the Indian Head cent were based on the features of Longacre&#039;s daughter Sarah; the tale runs that she was at the mint one day when she tried on the headdress of one of a number of Native Americans who were visiting, and her father sketched her. However, Sarah Longacre was 30 years old and married in 1858, not 12 as in the tale, and Longacre himself stated that the face was based on a statue of <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crouching_Venus" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crouching_Venus" rel="nofollow">Crouching Venus</a></i> in Philadelphia on loan from the Vatican.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBreen217-10" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBreen217-10" rel="nofollow">[7]</a> He did often sketch his elder daughter, and there are resemblances between the depictions of Sarah and the various representations of Liberty on his coins of the 1850s. These tales were apparently extant at the time, as Snowden, writing to Treasury Secretary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howell_Cobb" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howell_Cobb" rel="nofollow">Howell Cobb</a> in November 1858, denied that the coin was based &quot;on any human features in the Longacre family&quot;.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow25%E2%80%9326-14" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow25%E2%80%9326-14" rel="nofollow">[10]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBreen217%E2%80%93218-15" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBreen217%E2%80%93218-15" rel="nofollow">[11]</a> Lee F. McKenzie, in his 1991 article on Longacre, notes that any artist can be influenced by many things, but calls the story &quot;essentially false&quot;.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMcKenzie1980-16" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMcKenzie1980-16" rel="nofollow">[12]</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Regardless of who posed for Longacre, the facial features of the &quot;Indian&quot; are essentially Caucasian, meaning that a Caucasian woman wears the headdress of a Native American man. Longacre had, in 1854, designed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dollar_piece" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dollar_piece" rel="nofollow">three-dollar piece</a> with a female with similar features (also supposedly based on the museum sculpture) but a more fanciful headdress, and adapted that design for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_dollar" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_dollar" rel="nofollow">gold dollar</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow26-17" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow26-17" rel="nofollow">[13]</a> Officials were aware of this artistic license at the time of issue; Snowden, in his November 1858 letter to Cobb, characterizes the two earlier coins as &quot;the artists at the Mint evidently not realizing the absurd incongruity of placing this most masculine attribute of the warrior brave on the head of a woman&quot;.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow26-17" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow26-17" rel="nofollow">[13]</a> Longacre would not be the last to juxtapose the features of a White woman with an Indian headdress reserved for men; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Saint-Gaudens" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Saint-Gaudens" rel="nofollow">Augustus Saint-Gaudens</a>, for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_eagle" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_eagle" rel="nofollow">Indian Head eagle</a> (1907), produced a similar design. Later issues depict more accurate Indians, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_Lyon_Pratt" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_Lyon_Pratt" rel="nofollow">Bela Lyon Pratt</a>&#039;s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_gold_pieces" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_gold_pieces" rel="nofollow">Indian Head gold pieces</a> (1908), the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_nickel" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_nickel" rel="nofollow">Buffalo nickel</a> (1913) by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Earle_Fraser_(sculptor)" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Earle_Fraser_(sculptor)" rel="nofollow">James Earle Fraser</a>, who worked from Native American models, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Trail_Memorial_half_dollar" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Trail_Memorial_half_dollar" rel="nofollow">Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar</a> (1926), designed by Fraser and his wife <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Gardin_Fraser" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Gardin_Fraser" rel="nofollow">Laura</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow26%E2%80%9327-18" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTESnow26%E2%80%9327-18" rel="nofollow">[14]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBreen256-19" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBreen256-19" rel="nofollow">[15]</a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1859_P50C_Half_Dollar_(Judd-241)_(obv).jpg" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1859_P50C_Half_Dollar_(Judd-241)_(obv).jpg" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/1859_P50C_Half_Dollar_%28Judd-241%29_%28obv%29.jpg/220px-1859_P50C_Half_Dollar_%28Judd-241%29_%28obv%29.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vermeule" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vermeule" rel="nofollow">Cornelius Vermeule</a> thought the Indian Head cent was better than Longacre&#039;s 1859 pattern half dollar.</p><p>Art historian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vermeule" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vermeule" rel="nofollow">Cornelius Vermeule</a> had mixed emotions about the Indian Head cent: &quot;Longacre enriched the mythology of American coinage in a pleasant if unpretentious fashion. Given his pattern half-dollar designs of 1859 as a yardstick, he could have done worse.&quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEVermeule57-20" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEVermeule57-20" rel="nofollow">[16]</a> In another comparison, Vermeule suggested, &quot;far from a major creation aesthetically or iconographically, and far less attractive to the eye than the [flying eagle], the Indian head cent was at least to achieve the blessing of popular appeal. The coin became perhaps the most beloved and typically American of any piece great or small in the American series. Great art the coin was not, but it was one of the first products of the United States mints to achieve the common touch.&quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEVermeule57-20" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Head_cent#cite_note-FOOTNOTEVermeule57-20" rel="nofollow">[16]</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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