There is a long-standing belief in the numismatic community, which occasionally sees the light of day in print, that the Standing Liberty quarter of 1916-1917 created a fire storm of criticism and had to be redesigned. According to this legend, the topless figure of Liberty offended so many people that the authorities were forced to clothe her in chain mail. It is a pleasant tale, but one with little in the way of truth; the real story is equally interesting, however, and begins in 1915.
The Barber quarter, by 1915, had been struck continuously for 23 years and was thus approaching the time when the design could be changed without Congressional oversight. (A law passed in 1890 stipulated that coinage designs could not be changed more often than 25 years without legislative approval.) Mint Director Robert Wooley realized that this deadline was approaching and decided to have the dime, quarter and half dollar redesigned. Letters were sent to leading American sculptors inviting them to participate in a contest. One of these went to Hermon A. MacNeil of College Point, Long Island.
MacNeil, who lived from 1866 to 1947, was born in Prattville, Mass. At an early age, he showed a marked talent for art, and during the late 1880s studied at a prestigious Paris art school. Upon his return to the United States, he worked for a time in Chicago but later established a studio on Long
