What is a shilling, anyway? The old British monetary system was a mess: 12 pence to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound, all awkward fractions and mental arithmetic. The Continental Congress wanted to throw that system out the window, replace it with a rational, base-10 currency, teachable to a child in an afternoon. In his 1784 Notes on the Establishment of a Money Unit, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

And so we have the little dime, ten times a penny, one-tenth a dollar—though it has always read ONE DIME on the coin, never “Ten Cents,” because everyone knows what it’s worth.

It is certainly our most charming and diminutive coin—the “Mercury” dime (1916-1945) is often said to be our prettiest. But the dime acquired, and lost, a second meaning in the 20th century: until the eradication of polio, it was associated with the March of Dimes, championed by FDR, the stricken president whose face would adorn it shortly after his death. Millions of Americans mailed dimes to the White House to help defeat polio.

For the country’s 250th anniversary in 2026, the US Mint has released the “Emerging Liberty” dime, showing a tousled, wind-blown but determined profile of Lady Liberty, with an eagle on the reverse above the words LIBERTY OVER TYRANNY.

That phrase has never appeared on a US coin before.

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Links:

• Dime - US Mint

  
  

• Notes on the establisment [sic] of a money unit, and of a coinage for the United States, Thomas Jefferson, 1784 (via Internet Archive)

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

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