Women as America’s Money-Makers: 1795-1865 at the First U.S. Mint and the Civil War's "Treasury Girls"
October 22, 2026, 12 p.m. MT

This presentation will discuss how two federal acts and the Civil War created major opportunities for American women to "make money." Under the Coinage Act of 1792, women worked as mint "adjusters," weighing and filing ingots for $0.50 a day—less than men, but valuable work. During the Civil War, the Legal Tender Act of 1862 led to hiring female "currency trimmers" to cut greenbacks at half the pay of men. Women also signed Confederate currency, created commercial "store cards," raised millions for the Union Army, and even operated as counterfeiters.

Rebecca Rush was a CPA and corporate executive financial officer of a public company. She is currently chairperson of a 501c3 not-for-profit organization. She continues her lifelong learning goals by researching and storytelling about how Civil War-era ancestors dealt with commerce, abundance, and deprivation. Her lens has included Women’s History, Tokens, Scrip, Currency, Coinage and Banking. She has presented or co-presented programs for Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists (PAN), Harrisburg Coin Club, Gettysburg Coin Show, and various Civil War Round Tables as well as presenting for Newman Numismatic Portal programs. Rebecca is a national board member of the Woman’s Relief Corp., the official auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic.

From Libertas to Liberty: The Foreign Roots of America’s Numismatic Identity

November 12, 2026, 12 p.m. MT

This lecture traces the evolution of liberty as a numismatic symbol from the ancient Mediterranean to the early American republic. Beginning with the Greek and Roman traditions that personified freedom through figures such as Libertas and symbols like the
pileus, the talk explores how these classical motifs were revived during the Enlightenment and the Atlantic revolutions of the eighteenth century. These ideas circulated widely through European art, political philosophy, and coinage long before the
founding of the United States.

When the young American republic began striking its own coins, it drew heavily upon these existing traditions while reshaping them into a distinctly American visual language. Early United States coinage, including Liberty Cap and Flowing Hair designs,
reflects a deliberate effort to adapt classical and European symbols of freedom into a new national identity. Comparisons between Roman Libertas coinage, Enlightenment-era European medals, and early American Liberty Cap coinage reveal how the young republic adapted familiar imagery into a new political language.

Russ Bega began collecting U.S. coins when he was 8 years old after a trip to his local coin shop in Northern Colorado. He was previously employed by Heritage Auction Galleries, before departing on a decade-long career as a US Army Infantry Non-Commissioned Officer. In 2021, he joined the Harlan J. Berk team in Chicago, IL, where he is now the store manager. His specialty is Liberty Seated coins and 19th-century numismatics.