The Secret History of the First US Mint

Orosz & Augsburger

Regular price $12.00

Frank H. Stewart is both the hero and the villain in this remarkable tale ripped from the headlines of early 20th century Philadelphia. He was a high school dropout who wrote the definitive history of our nation's first coin factory. He was no art connoisseur, and yet he commissioned unforgettable paintings of the first U.S. Mint, by famous artists. A poor boy made good, Stewart bought the old Mint, labored to preserve it, and failed in the most dramatic way possible. Could his later acts of commemoration redeem his failures in preservation? The Secret History of the First U.S. Mint tells, for the first time, the full story of the paradoxical Frank H. Stewart and his self-appointed life's mission to celebrate an irreplaceable slice of our nations heritage. It is a tour-de-force work of scholarship that sets straight long misunderstood Mint history.