Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
On the advice of United States treasurer Alexander Hamilton, Congress passed a law establishing America\u2019s first federally funded bank<\/a> on Feb. 8, 1791. <\/p>\n The bank \u2014 located inside Philadelphia\u2019s Carpenters Hall \u2014 would serve as the primary fiscal agent for the federal government and one of its many jobs was to issue paper money that was printed by private banknote companies and local print shops. <\/p>\n Coins still weren\u2019t in the mix yet. <\/p>\n On April 2, 1792, Congress established the United States Mint in Philadelphia with the adoption of the Coinage Act<\/a>. The act set the dollar as the standard and set denominations \u2014 pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters \u2014 and their weights, compositions, and regulations. <\/p>\n The new law also required a symbol and inscription of the word \u201cliberty\u201d on each of the coins.<\/p>\n The first U.S. Mint will be celebrated this Saturday at the United States Mint<\/a> in Old City<\/a>. from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Philadelphia Historic District\u2019s<\/a> 33rd \u201cFirstival\u201d Firstivals are weekly day parties held in honor of America\u2019s 250th birthday. <\/p>\n The first U.S. Mint \u2014 fondly remembered as Ye Old Mint \u2014 was located on the east side of Seventh Street, just south of Arch, on land purchased by David Rittenhouse. <\/p>\n Rittenhouse, the well-heeled great-grandson of America\u2019s first paper mill owner, William Rittenhouse<\/a>, was an 18th-century astrologer and clockmaker who would serve as the first director of the U.S. Mint. Rittenhouse Square is named after him. <\/p>\n The first coins made after the Coinage Act were half dimes and fashioned off-site, according to Tim Grant, exhibits and public affairs manager at the U.S. Mint. \u201cMade of silver, these half dimes were supposedly struck using silver donated by Martha Washington,\u201d Grant wrote in an email. <\/p>\n The first coins fashioned at the actual mint building were 11,178 copper cents, or pennies, and were delivered in March of 1793. (The U.S. Mint stopped making pennies in November<\/a>, ending its 232-year production run.) <\/p>\n During America\u2019s early days in the late 18th century, work conditions at the U.S. Mint were grueling, Grant wrote. Employees worked 11 hours a day, six days a week, and earned $1 a day. It took workers three years to produce the nation\u2019s first one million coins. <\/p>\n \u201cToday we can produce one mission coins in less than a half an hour,\u201d Grant wrote. <\/p>\n As the nation grew, so did its demand for coins. <\/p>\n By the late 1820s, the U.S. Mint had outgrown its original buildings and in May of 1828, Congress voted to keep the Mint in Philadelphia<\/a> and erect a second building. The cornerstone of this new and larger U.S. Mint was laid on July 4, 1829 on the northwest corner of Juniper and Chestnut Streets. It opened in 1833. That building served as the U.S. Mint\u2019s home for 68 years.<\/p>\n In 1901, the U.S. Mint moved to its third location, taking up the entire block of Spring Garden<\/a> Street between 16th and 17th Streets. The building, with a lobby containing seven Tiffany mosaics, was its home through the mid 1960s. The Community College of Philadelphia occupies the site today. <\/p>\n The Mint returned to Old City in 1969, moving into its current building on five acres of Fifth Street between Arch and Race Streets. It boasts over 600,000 square feet of manufacturing space and more than 50 million coins are made there today. <\/p>\n There are three additional active U.S. Mints in America: the Denver Mint, the West Point Mint, and the San Francisco Mint. The San Francisco Mint is not open to the public and specializes in commemorative coins. <\/p>\n \u201cThe mission of the United States Mint has remained the same for over two centuries,\u201d Grant wrote. \u201cTo serve the American people by safely and efficiently manufacturing, distributing, and circulating precious metal, collectible coins, and national metals.\u201d <\/p>\n This week\u2019s Firstival is Saturday, Aug. 15, at 11 a.m.-1 p.m., at the United States Mint, 151 N. Independence Mall East.<\/p>\n The Inquirer is highlighting a \u201cfirst\u201d <\/a>from the Philadelphia Historic District\u2019s 52 Weeks of Firsts<\/a> program each week. A \u201c52 Weeks of Firsts\u201d<\/a> podcast, produced by All That\u2019s Good Productions, drops every Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min On the advice of United States treasurer Alexander Hamilton, Congress passed a law…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,111755],"class_list":["post-264705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-us-mint-pennies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}