Booker T Washington & George W Carver Silver Commemorative Half Dollar Collection (1946-54)

Booker T Washington & George W Carver Silver Commemorative Half Dollar Collection (1946-54)

Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Virginia in 1856 but rose to become a masterful educator and politician. He is perhaps best known for the founding of the Tuskegee Institute, the historic school in Alabama that sought to educate former slaves and their descendants.

Washington ran the Tuskegee Institute according to his vision of economic and industrial self-improvement until his death in 1915. About 30 years later, a former student of his named S.J. Phillips developed a plan to purchase Washington’s Virginia birthplace as a memorial and educational center. Working with Washington’s daughter Portia, the two advocated the production of a commemorative coin to fund these efforts.

  With the Booker T. Washington program scheduled to end in 1951, S.J. Phillips returned and proposed adding George Washington Carver to the coin

  The designer of both coins was Isaac Scott Hathaway, the first African-American artist whose work was produced by the U.S. Mint.