TexasCHLforum.com

seamusTX wrote:Wow. I had no idea that bit of history was so complicated.

That's one nice thing about your "This Day in History" posts. It gives those of us in the peanut gallery a chance to once in a while include a little essay on some item we find of interest.

And I need to go back and make a correction, now that I re-read. Talking about the third design presented, I said the Eye of Providence appeared on the obverse side; that should have read the reverse side.

The Day in History posts are fun; I check 'em all. Thanks!

P.S. It was in the FDR administration that the $1 bill was first graced with the Great Seal. Roosevelt's Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace, recommended to FDR that the mint start producing a coin bearing the seal on obverse and reverse (there; got it right that time). According to Wallace's notes, he saw a document in 1934 that described the Great Seal, and Wallace had never seen the reverse side, the one with the Eye of Providence and the 13-step pyramid. What particularly excited Wallace was the motto in a banner underneath the pyramid: Novus Ordo Seclorum. This translates roughly to "New Order of the Ages" and Wallace immediately homed in on how this sounded like a motto that could have written specifically for FDR's "New Deal."

FDR liked the idea, but chose to put the seal on one side of the $1 bill rather than on a coin. The first design had the front of the seal on the left of the note, the reverse on the right. Which seems pretty logical since English is read left-to-right. But FDR had them switched. So starting in 1935 through to today, the reverse side of the Great Seal appears on the left side of the back of the $1 bill, and the obverse (or front) of the seal appears on the right side. I've never seen a good explanation for why FDR wanted the images of the seal to switched, left-for-right.

It was in 1929 that our paper currency shrunk down to its current size (6.14" x 2.61"). Prior to that there were no size standards, the notes were somewhere around 7.5" x 3.2", and the designs changed pretty frequently.

The design of the $1 bill stayed essentially unchanged from 1923 through 1935, despite the shrinkage in size. The reverse side looked like this:



The first 1935 redesign, to which FDR gave his conditional approval before ordering the images of the Great Seal be swapped, looked like this:

1782 - After three earlier design presentations over the course of six years, Congress adopts the fourth design offering as the Great Seal of the United States.

A committee was formed by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and tasked with designing a seal for the new country. The committee members were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. Each man proposed a design for the seal.

Adams's idea was based on the "Judgment of Hercules," a painting that depicts a young Hercules choosing between two paths: an easy path of self-indulgence or a rugged path of duty and honor. Franklin preferred a depiction from Exodus that he wrote as being, "Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh..." The motto was to be: Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God. Jefferson proposed a scene of the children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night.

The committee sought the help of a heraldic artist, Pierre Eugene du Simitiere, to help bring their ideas into a single form for a two-sided seal they could present to Congress. It was de Simitiere who included the "Eye of Providence" (that eye in a glowing triangle that so much has been made of in Dan Brown's books and the National Treasure movies) and the motto "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of Many, One).

That's about all from the original design that was eventually used; throw in MDCCLXXVI, the Roman numeral for 1776, if you want. Congress mumbled about the final result, and on the same day it was presented issued the order that it lie on the table, killing the proposal just like lack of action from the Calendars Committee of the Texas Legislature killed our 2009 CHL bills. But I digress. Ahem.

Jefferson, however, liked the motto Franklin had come up with, and adopted it for his personal seal. As for the Great Seal itself, it continued to lie on the table for over three years. In 1780, a second design committee was formed: William Houston, James Lovell, John Morin Scott, and they also lassoed an artist to help, Francis Hopkinson, who most historians feel did the actual work of this second committee.

Hopkinson came up with two versions, the second of which was presented to Congress. More mumbling, and the design was referred back to committee...which did nothing else with it. As with committee number one, several design elements eventually made it into the seal we have today, among them a shield with 13 stripes representing the original Colonies, and a constellation of 13 stars surrounded by clouds. Of interest is that two years earlier, in 1778, Hopkins had designed a Continental Currency $40 bill that also used the stars-in-clouds...and the Eye of Providence that Hopkins had seen on the first committee's design for the Great Seal.

Fast forward to 1782 and the third committee made up of Elias Boudinot, Arthur Middleton, and John Rutledge, though Arthur Lee unofficially replaced Rutledge almost immediately. The artist they recruited this time was William Barton. In amazingly short five days, the committee had their presentation ready for Congress. There was a small eagle included on the front, but other than that you wouldn't recognize much that ended up on the final seal. On the reverse side, however, is the Eye of Providence riding atop a truncated, 13-step pyramid. Guess where that pyramid first came from? Our buddy Francis Hopkinson again, who also designed a Continental Currency $50 bill in 1778 that used the pyramid.

Congress mumbled and took no action on this third design offering. In June of 1782 they did away with the committee idea and handed the design task off to Charles Thomson, the Secretary of the Congress. Thomson blended several of the previous design elements and, only after he had formulated his basic sketches, did he involve William Barton again to help with some artistic/heraldic refinement (the 13 stripes on the shield were changed from diagonal to vertical; the bald eagle's wings were positioned wingtips up rather than "rising."

Thomson gave his design to Congress on June 20, 1782, and it was accepted the same day. Thomson's design and written explanation remain the official definition of the Great Seal. He remained the custodian of the seal until 1789 when the Federal government was formed. Among the duties of the Secretary of State remains responsibility for the Great Seal of the United States.

For a refresher, you can pull out a $1 bill and see both sides of the Great Seal:



Read more about it: http://www.usa.gov/About/Great_Seal.shtml