COLUMBIAN EXPO BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS MEDALS

The Board of Lady Managers for the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition that was originally scheduled for 1892, was organized in late November 1890. It was chaired by Bertha Honoré Palmer, wife of Potter Palmer, owner of the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago. She was a most formidable and capable woman who oversaw the construction of the Fair's Woman's Building that showcased art, inventions, and the industries of women from around the world.

The Board included two representatives from each state, territory and the District of Columbia, one of them, Susan Gale Cooke, a widow, was first appointed woman manager from Tennessee and was later chosen as one of the twenty-six members of the executive committee, a powerful position. Communication with reference to the any and all work of the board had to be addressed to her. Described as being "a very rapid worker, clear-headed and expeditious, exceedingly patient and sweet tempered, Cooke, 1845-1932, was born and educated in New York City. After completing her education she married Sidney Cooke, a member of the New York Stock Exchange. For health reasons, he and Susan moved to Tennessee where he died in 1883.

While it never made the papers, in her role as Secretary, Cooke was most certainly involved with all aspects of Isabella Quarter and the Silver Half Dollars.

With regard to the Quarter, in April 1893 the mint secretary sent two models of the head of Isabella to the Board of Lady Managers, thus to Secretary Cooke. One presented her as a young queen in profile; the other as a mature Queen. Both Bertha Palmer and secretary Cooke preferred the profile view. The design for the reverse depicted a figure of beautiful young woman, kneeling, holding a distaff unwinding flax, emblematic of woman's industry.

One of the special features of the coin was that it was the government-issued coin bearing the portrait of a woman. Other coins had featured idealized versions of women, but this was the first. Congress authorized the minting of $10,000, or 40,000 quarters, at the time, believing it would become extremely rare. The coins were minted in Philadelphia and sold for a dollar. Each Board member was given one of them. Mrs. Porter requested that her salary, $6,045 arrears of salary due her, be paid in Isabella Quarters, but not with a view to speculation for her personal benefit. Rather, she explained, whatever profit derived from these coins was to go to the credit of the lady managers.

In January 1893 the question arose as to whether or not the Columbian souvenir half dollar designed by Charles E. Barber could be classed as a current coin. The purchaser of one of these souvenirs paid a dollar for a piece of silver worth about thirty-eight cents, and that it appeared that the extra price should entitle a buyer to some extra privilege in the disposition of the product. No reply was given, but nine months later about 500,000 of the coins were being stored in subtreasury vaults awaiting orders for their disposition. It appeared the fairgoers were not particularly anxious to buy them, but those who did, held on to them. However, another article published a week later said they were selling like hot cakes and that orders for the most distinctive and highest prized cheap souvenir of the World's Fair were being received from all parts of the United States.

The fair ended on October 31st. Nearly all of the Isabella Quarters minted for the board of lady managers had been sold and the rest were going fast. The Columbian half dollars, a considerable amount, were soon to be sent back to the mints possibly to become ordinary 50-cent pieces or anything else the government decided to do with them. At this time about 50,000 of them were in the fair's model of the treasury building, and about 7,000 of them in the model of the Washington monument. Of the 3,858,240 of the coins, only 1,022,445 had been sold up to the middle of October leaving 2,835,795. On that amount the exposition was minus $1,417,897.50 of expected profit. It so happened that over the summer not a great many attendees had dollars, which they cared to give up for souvenir 50-cent pieces.

Neither the Isabella Quarter or the half dollar enjoyed the popularity that was expected, but in the final analysis both were not mere medals or tokens, they were good money and legal tender, not to mention today's collectibles.

After the Chicago Fair closed its doors, Susan Gale Cooke left for Paris. Cooke was charged with heading the woman's exhibits at the Exposition Universelle scheduled to open in 1900. During the event the women had not only won medals, some had their entire exhibit purchased by French connoisseurs. Upon her return Susan Gale Parlin settled in New York until her death in 1932 at age 86. She was buried in Beechwoods Cemetery in New Rochelle, NY.

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