01
The hands
The hands meet the loom beside the circular mechanism. The worker is unnamed, not an identified labor organizer.
Lowell
National Historical Park
The worker. The machine. The city.
A large circular mechanism almost meets the rim. Beside it, a worker’s hands bring industrial history into the scale of a single task.
Read the reverse ⟶DenominationQuarter dollar
Weight5 troy ounces
Fineness99.9% silver
Diameter76.2 mm
Mint markNone · bullion
IssuerUnited States Mint
Reverse design anatomy
Read a process,
not a monument
The Mint names a mill girl at a power loom, its circular bobbin battery, and the Boott Mill clock tower through a window. The circular object is not a waterwheel.
The following close reading describes visible forms. It does not assign undocumented intentions to the artists.
02
Bobbin battery
Radial compartments surround a central hub. NPS explains the battery as an automatic supply of replacement bobbins.
03
Window and clock tower
The vertical frame separates the interior work scene from the city beyond. The tower is identified by the Mint.
The place behind the coin
Work has a history.
So does the machine.
NPS describes women entering Lowell’s mills from 1823, the discipline of factory and boardinghouse life, and resistance to wages and working conditions. This is labor history, not a simple story of technical progress.
Its weave-room account dates the patented bobbin battery to the 1890s. The coin’s mill-girl description should therefore not be assigned to a specific early-1800s shift. Neither the depicted worker nor the exact machine model is independently identified.
- 1823Early Lowell recruitment · NPS
- 1890sBobbin-battery patent period · NPS
- 2019Issue #46
Historical context, not a reconstruction. No unverified event photograph is used.
Same design. A larger canvas.
From pocket change
to a statement in silver
The 2019 design also belongs to the circulating quarter. At 76.2 mm, the five-ounce silver coin is 3.14 times wider by diameter—not 3.14 times heavier.
The quarter is a measured outline: an exact authorized quarter photograph is not bound for this page. It is not a miniature bullion image.
Collect with context
Know the design.
Know the object.
Reverse design: Joel Iskowitz; sculpt: Phebe Hemphill.
- Standard bullion
- No mint mark · Authorized Purchasers · incuse edge weight and fineness.
- Collector five-ounce
- P mint mark · special finish · a separate object. Collector totals are not bullion mintages.