When was the last time you looked—really looked—at a dime? It is the smallest coin in U.S. circulation, so it takes a keen eye to see the very subtle “JS” just beneath Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s truncated neck. These are the initials of John Sinnock, the U.S. Mint’s Chief Engraver from 1925 to 1947, who is credited with sculpting the profile of the 32nd president. However, institutions such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum—and even Roosevelt’s son—credit another sculptor with inspiring the design: Selma Burke, the illustrious Harlem Renaissance sculptor. So where is credit due? The answer is … complicated.In 1943, 43-year-old Selma Burke won a Commission of Fine Arts competition and a rare opportunity to sculpt the president’s likeness for the new Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington, D.C. Burke, renowned for her Booker T. Washington bust, ran into some problems, since she didn’t feel that photographs captured Roosevelt’s stature. So the sculptor wrote to the White House to request a live-sketch session. The administration, to her utter shock, agreed.
On February 22, 1944, Burke met with Roosevelt for 45 minutes, sketched his profile on a brown paper bag, and engaged in a lively conversation about their childhoods. At one point, Burke said, “Mr. President, could you hold your head like this?
” He invited her back for another session the following day. About a year later, just months before Roosevelt’s death, Eleanor Roosevelt visited Burke’s home in New York to see the profile-in-progress. The first lady told her, “l think you’ve made Franklin too young.” To which Burke replied, “I didn’t make it for today, I made it for tomorrow and tomorrow.”Roosevelt died five months before the official unveiling of the plaque, in September 1945. To commemorate his legacy and his founding of the March of Dimes to combat polio, the U.S. Mint and Congress proposed engraving his portrait on the dime, which at that point held the profile of the goddess Liberty wearing a winged cap. U.S. Mint Director Nellie Tayloe Ross (the first woman elected governor, in Wyoming), tapped Sinnock for the job.
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