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2019 Lowell National Historical Park Quarter Massachusetts
Forty-Sixth in the America the Beautiful Quarters Collection
The first America the Beautiful Quarter issued in 2019 – and the 46th coin in the overall series – honors Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts. The coin also starts the 10th year of the ongoing collection that will eventually feature a National Park or other national site in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the five overseas U.S. territories.
Four additional America the Beautiful Quarters will be issued later in 2019: American Memorial Park in Northern Mariana Islands, War in the Pacific National Historical Park in Guam, San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in Texas, and Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho.
Each Quarter is struck for circulation in a limited edition of about 10 weeks at both the Philadelphia and Denver Mints. The two different coins are identified by a small “P” (Philadelphia) or “D” (Denver) mint mark on the obverse under “In God We Trust.”
Lowell National Historical Park was established in 1978 in Lowell, Massachusetts, which lies at the confluence of the Merrimack and Concord Rivers about 30 miles north of Boston. During the Industrial Revolution that swept across America in the early 1800’s, Lowell became the manufacturing center of the New England textile industry. The park preserves cotton mills and other sites associated with Lowell’s unique place in the thriving pre-Civil War economy.
The major site of interest at Lowell is the Boott Mills complex, which includes cotton mills and the Boott Cotton Mills Museum. Several other mills are also located throughout the park. The mills were built along canals that provided a source of power and that connected to the Merrimack River and the Atlantic Ocean, making it easy to take in shipments of Southern cotton and to distribute finished cotton goods.
One of Lowell’s most interesting aspects was the “mill girls,” the young women who were at the core of the mills’ ability to mass-produce goods. Although they received cash wages and were given lodging in safe boardinghouses, the women worked long hours in dangerous conditions; in response, they formed the first union of working women in the United States and demanded better pay and a safer work environment. They also supported abolition, despite the fact that slavery was essential to the supply of cotton prior to the Civil War, and embraced education for all girls.
The reverse of the 2019 Lowell National Historical Park Quarter features a mill girl working at a power loom in one of Lowell’s cotton mills. The background highlights the Lowell skyline, including the Boott Mill clock tower.
The design was selected from among 18 suggestions created by U.S. Mint artists, most of which showed mill girls in various stages of the textile production process. Most of the remaining designs included symbols of the textile industry, such as cotton plants and threaded bobbins and spindles that were essential elements of the mill machinery.
The Lowell National Historical Park Quarter was released by the U.S. Mint in February 2019.
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