Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society Announces Newman Grants

The Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society (EPNNES) announces its second set of Newman Grants, created to financially assist numismatic authors and organizations pursuing original research in American numismatics. Newman Grants are awarded annually on the late Eric P. Newman’s birthday and assist with direct costs of numismatic research such as travel, photography, and graphic arts services.Six awards are being made this year, touching on varied aspects of numismatics including colonial and obsolete paper money, colonial coinage, medallic art, and black numismatics. The 2020 Newman Grant awardees are:James Ehrhardt will trace Iowa obsolete currency as it flowed between central and branch banks and develop quantitative analysis of surviving examples. Ehrhardt, professor emeritus at the University of Iowa, co-authored Iowa National Bank Notes (2006, with Steven J. Sweeney), based on the Higgins Museum collection in Okoboji, IA.Harcourt Fuller, Fulbright Global Scholar, will produce a documentary on black money focusing on world currencies that feature themes of Africa and its related diaspora. Fuller, associate professor at Georgia State University, created the Black Money Exhibit (https://www.blackmoneyexhibit.com), a traveling display that uses paper money to examine history and culture of people of African descent.Chris McDowell will continue his investigation of the Fugio cent series, with travel to the Birmingham Library (UK) to work with the Matthew Boulton papers, and to New York to research the C. Wyllys Betts archive. This builds upon McDowell’s existing work on Fugio cent restrikes, recently published in the Journal of Early American Numismatics.Ángel Navarro Zayas will explore the General Archive of the Indies, located in Spain, for legislative documents related to Spanish paper money that circulated in colonial Louisiana. Navarro Zayas previously published research on this topic in The Numismatist.William Nyberg will study the United States Mint involvement in the production of early 19th century revenue stamps. Nyberg will be traveling to the National Archives and Records Administration facility in College Park, MD, to examine Mint documents from this period. Nyberg first explored this subject in Robert Scot: Engraving Liberty (2015).Steve Roach, former Coin World Editor-in-Chief, will study the relationship between numismatic works and other commissions received by early 20th century U.S. Mint engravers, including Anthony De Francisci, James Earle Fraser, Adolph Weinman, and Daniel Chester French. Roach will work with the French papers at Williams College (Williamstown, MA), and the Saint-Gaudens archive at Dartmouth (Hanover, NH).It is the hope of EPNNES that this program will continue the legacy of Eric P. Newman in a way that would reflect his high standards for numismatic research.