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This article is about feces in general. For specifically human feces, see Human feces.
"Fecal matter" redirects here. For the American punk rock band, see Fecal Matter (band).
Not to be confused with manure, faces, or facies.

Elephant feces
Human feces
A comparison of elephant (left) and human feces (right)

Feces (or faeces; sg.: faex) are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine.[1][2] Feces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut.[1]

Feces are discharged through the anus or cloaca during defecation.

Feces can be used as fertilizer or soil conditioner in agriculture. They can also be burned as fuel or dried and used for construction. Some medicinal uses have been found. In the case of human feces, fecal transplants or fecal bacteriotherapy are in use. Urine and feces together are called excreta.

Skatole is the principal compound responsible for the unpleasant smell of feces.

Characteristics

The molecule hydrogen sulfide contributes to the smell of feces.

The distinctive odor of feces is due to skatole, and thiols (sulfur-containing compounds), as well as amines and carboxylic acids. Skatole is produced from tryptophan via indoleacetic acid. Decarboxylation gives skatole.[3][4]

The perceived bad odor of feces has been hypothesized to be a deterrent for humans, as consuming or touching it may result in sickness or infection.[5]

Physiology

Main article: Defecation

Feces are discharged through the anus or cloaca during defecation. This process requires pressures that may reach 100 millimetres of mercury (3.9 inHg) (13.3 kPa) in humans and 450 millimetres of mercury (18 inHg) (60 kPa) in penguins.[6][7] The forces required to expel the feces are generated through muscular contractions and a build-up of gases inside the gut, prompting the sphincter to relieve the pressure and release the feces.[7]

Ecology

After an animal has digested eaten material, the remains of that material are discharged from its body as waste. Although it is lower in energy than the food from which it is derived, feces may retain a large amount of energy, often 50% of that of the original food.[8] This means that of all food eaten, a significant amount of energy remains for the decomposers of ecosystems.

Many organisms feed on feces, from bacteria to fungi to insects such as dung beetles, who can sense odors from long distances.[9] Some may specialize in feces, while others may eat other foods. Feces serve not only as a basic food, but also as a supplement to the usual diet of some animals. This process is known as coprophagia, and occurs in various animal species such as young elephants eating the feces of their mothers to gain essential gut flora, or by other animals such as dogs, rabbits, and monkeys.

Feces and urine, which reflect ultraviolet light, are important to raptors such as kestrels, who can see the near ultraviolet and thus find their prey by their middens and territorial markers.[10]

Seeds also may be found in feces. Animals who eat fruit are known as frugivores. An advantage for a plant in having fruit is that animals will eat the fruit and unknowingly disperse the seed in doing so. This mode of seed dispersal is highly successful, as seeds dispersed around the base of a plant are unlikely to succeed and often are subject to heavy predation. Provided the seed can withstand the pathway through the digestive system, it is not only likely to be far away from the parent plant, but is even provided with its own fertilizer.

Organisms that subsist on dead organic matter or detritus are known as detritivores, and play an important role in ecosystems by recycling organic matter back into a simpler form that plants and other autotrophs may absorb once again. This cycling of matter is known as the biogeochemical cycle. To maintain nutrients in soil it is therefore important that feces returns to the area from which they came, which is not always the case in human society where food may be transported from rural areas to urban populations and then feces disposed of into a river or sea.

Human feces

Main article: Human feces

Depending on the individual and the circumstances, human beings may defecate several times a day, every day, or once every two or three days. Extensive hardening of the feces that interrupts this routine for several days or more is called constipation.

The appearance of human fecal matter varies according to diet and health.[11] Normally it is semisolid, with a mucus coating. A combination of bile and bilirubin, which comes from dead red blood cells, gives feces the typical brown color.[1][2]

After the meconium, the first stool expelled, a newborn's feces contains only bile, which gives it a yellow-green color. Breast feeding babies expel soft, pale yellowish, and not quite malodorous matter; but once the baby begins to eat, and the body starts expelling bilirubin from dead red blood cells, its matter acquires the familiar brown color.[2]

At different times in their life, human beings will expel feces of different colors and textures. A stool that passes rapidly through the intestines will look greenish; lack of bilirubin will make the stool look like clay.

Uses of animal feces

See also: Reuse of excreta and Human feces § Uses

Fertilizer

The feces of animals, e.g. guano and manure, often are used as fertilizer.[12]

Energy

Further information: Dry animal dung fuel

Dry animal dung, such as that of camel, bison and cattle, is burned as fuel in many countries.[13]

Animals such as the giant panda[14] and zebra[15] possess gut bacteria capable of producing biofuel. The bacterium in question, Brocadia anammoxidans, can be used to synthesize the rocket fuel hydrazine.[16][17]

Coprolites and paleofeces

A coprolite is fossilized feces and is classified as a trace fossil. In paleontology they give evidence about the diet of an animal. They were first described by William Buckland in 1829. Prior to this, they were known as "fossil fir cones" and "bezoar stones". They serve a valuable purpose in paleontology because they provide direct evidence of the predation and diet of extinct organisms.[18] Coprolites may range in size from a few millimetres to more than 60 centimetres.

Palaeofeces are ancient feces, often found as part of archaeological excavations or surveys. Intact paleofeces of ancient people may be found in caves in arid climates and in other locations with suitable preservation conditions. These are studied to determine the diet and health of the people who produced them through the analysis of seeds, small bones, and parasite eggs found inside. Feces may contain information about the person excreting the material as well as information about the material. They also may be analyzed chemically for more in-depth information on the individual who excreted them, using lipid analysis and ancient DNA analysis. The success rate of usable DNA extraction is relatively high in paleofeces, making it more reliable than skeletal DNA retrieval.[19]

The reason this analysis is possible at all is due to the digestive system not being entirely efficient, in the sense that not everything that passes through the digestive system is destroyed. Not all of the surviving material is recognizable, but some of it is. Generally, this material is the best indicator archaeologists can use to determine ancient diets, as no other part of the archaeological record is so direct an indicator.[20]

A process that preserves feces in a way that they may be analyzed later is the Maillard reaction. This reaction creates a casing of sugar that preserves the feces from the elements. To extract and analyze the information contained within, researchers generally have to freeze the feces and grind it up into powder for analysis.[21]

Other uses

A pet waste station in Tucker, Georgia, US

Animal dung occasionally is used as a cement to make adobe (mudbrick) huts,[22] or even in throwing sports, especially with cow and camel dung.[23]

Kopi luwak, or civet coffee, is coffee made from coffee beans that have been eaten and excreted by Asian palm civets (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus).[24]

Giant pandas provide fertilizer for the world's most expensive green tea.[25] In Malaysia, tea is made from the droppings of stick insects fed on guava leaves.

In northern Thailand, elephants are used to digest coffee beans in order to make Black Ivory coffee, which is among the world's most expensive coffees. Paper is also made from elephant dung in Thailand.[25] Haathi Chaap is a brand of paper made from elephant dung.

Dog feces was used in the tanning process of leather during the Victorian era. Collected dog feces, known as "pure", "puer", or "pewer",[26] were mixed with water to form a substance known as "bate", because proteolytic enzymes in the dog feces helped to relax the fibrous structure of the hide before the final stages of tanning.[27] Dog feces collectors were known as pure finders.[28]

Elephants, hippos, koalas and pandas are born with sterile intestines, and require bacteria obtained from eating the feces of their mothers to digest vegetation.

In India, cow dung and cow urine are major ingredients of the traditional Hindu drink Panchagavya. Politician Shankarbhai Vegad stated that they can cure cancer.[29]

Terminology

Cyclosia papilionaris consuming bird droppings

Feces is the scientific terminology, while the term stool is also commonly used in medical contexts.[30] Outside of scientific contexts, these terms are less common, with the most common layman's term being poop or poo. The term shit is also in common use, although it is widely considered vulgar or offensive. There are many other terms, see below.

Etymology

The word faeces is the plural of the Latin word faex meaning "dregs". In most English-language usage, there is no singular form, making the word a plurale tantum;[31] out of various major dictionaries, only one enters variation from plural agreement.[32]

Synonyms

Further information: Shit

"Feces" is used more in biology and medicine than in other fields (reflecting science's tradition of classical Latin and Neo-Latin)

  • In hunting and tracking, terms such as dung, scat, spoor, and droppings normally are used to refer to non-human animal feces
  • In husbandry and farming, manure is common.
  • Stool is a common term in reference to human feces. For example, in medicine, to diagnose the presence or absence of a medical condition, a stool sample sometimes is requested for testing purposes.[33]
  • The term bowel movement(s) (with each movement a defecation event) is also common in health care.

There are many synonyms in informal registers for feces, just like there are for urine. Many are euphemistic, colloquial, or both; some are profane (such as shit), whereas most belong chiefly to child-directed speech (such as poo or the palindromic word poop) or to crude humor (such as crap, dump, load and turd.).

Horse feces

Feces of animals

The feces of animals often have special names (some of them are slang), for example:

Society and culture

Sign ordering owners to clean up after pets, Houston, Texas, 2011

Feelings of disgust

Main article: Human feces

In all human cultures, feces elicit varying degrees of disgust in adults. Children under two years typically have no disgust response to it, suggesting it is culturally derived.[34] Disgust toward feces appears to be strongest in cultures where flush toilets make olfactory contact with human feces minimal.[35][36] Disgust is experienced primarily in relation to the sense of taste (either perceived or imagined) and, secondarily to anything that causes a similar feeling by sense of smell, touch, or vision.

Social media

There is a Pile of Poo emoji represented in Unicode as U+1F4A9 💩 PILE OF POO, called unchi or unchi-kun in Japan.[37][38]

Jokes

Poop is the center of toilet humor, and is commonly an interest of young children and teenagers.[39]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Tortora, Gerard J.; Anagnostakos, Nicholas P. (1987). Principles of anatomy and physiology (Fifth ed.). New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. p. 624. ISBN 978-0-06-350729-6.
  2. ^ a b c Diem, K.; Lentner, C. (1970). "Faeces". in: Scientific Tables (Seventh ed.). Basle, Switzerland: CIBA-GEIGY Ltd. pp. 657–660.
  3. ^ Whitehead, T. R.; Price, N. P.; Drake, H. L.; Cotta, M. A. (25 January 2008). "Catabolic pathway for the production of skatole and indoleacetic acid by the acetogen Clostridium drakei, Clostridium scatologenes, and swine manure". Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 74 (6): 1950–3. Bibcode:2008ApEnM..74.1950W. doi:10.1128/AEM.02458-07. PMC 2268313. PMID 18223109.
  4. ^ Yokoyama, M. T.; Carlson, J. R. (1979). "Microbial metabolites of tryptophan in the intestinal tract with special reference to skatole". The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 32 (1): 173–178. doi:10.1093/ajcn/32.1.173. PMID 367144.
  5. ^ Curtis V, Aunger R, Rabie T (May 2004). "Evidence that disgust evolved to protect from risk of disease". Proc. Biol. Sci. 271 (Suppl 4): S131–3. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2003.0144. PMC 1810028. PMID 15252963.
  6. ^ Langley, Leroy Lester; Cheraskin, Emmanuel (1958). The Physiology of Man. McGraw-Hill. Archived from the original on 1 August 2020. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  7. ^ a b Meyer-Rochow, Victor Benno; Gal, Jozsef (2003). "Pressures produced when penguins pooh?calculations on avian defaecation". Polar Biology. 27 (1): 56–58. Bibcode:2003PoBio..27...56M. doi:10.1007/s00300-003-0563-3. ISSN 0722-4060. S2CID 43386022.
  8. ^ Cummings, Benjamin; Campbell, Neil A. (2008). Biology, 8th Edition, Campbell & Reece, 2008: Biology (8th ed.). Pearson. p. 890.[permanent dead link]
  9. ^ Heinrich B, Bartholomew GA (1979). "The ecology of the African dung beetle". Scientific American. 241 (5): 146–56. Bibcode:1979SciAm.241e.146H. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1179-146.
  10. ^ "Document: Krestel". City of Manhattan, Kansas. Retrieved 11 February 2012.[permanent dead link]
  11. ^ Stromberg, Joseph (22 January 2015). "Everybody poops. But here are 9 surprising facts about feces you may not know". Vox. Archived from the original on 17 November 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  12. ^ Dittmar, Heinrich; Drach, Manfred; Vosskamp, Ralf; Trenkel, Martin E.; Gutser, Reinhold; Steffens, Günter (2009). "Fertilizers, 2. Types". Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH. doi:10.1002/14356007.n10_n01. ISBN 978-3527306732.
  13. ^ "STCWA". Archived from the original on 13 March 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  14. ^ Handwerk, Brian (11 September 2013). "Panda Poop Might Help Turn Plants Into Fuel". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 3 December 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  15. ^ Ray, Kathryn Hobgood (25 August 2011). "Cars Could Run on Recycled Newspaper, Tulane Scientists Say". Tulane News. Archived from the original on 4 March 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  16. ^ Handwerk, Brian (9 November 2005). "Bacteria Eat Human Sewage, Produce Rocket Fuel". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on 13 March 2020. Retrieved 3 December 2019 – via wildsingapore.com.
  17. ^ Harhangi, HR; Le Roy, M; van Alen, T; Hu, BL; Groen, J; Kartal, B; Tringe, SG; Quan, ZX; Jetten, MS; Op; den Camp, HJ (2012). "Hydrazine synthase, a unique phylomarker with which to study the presence and biodiversity of anammox bacteria". Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 78 (3): 752–8. Bibcode:2012ApEnM..78..752H. doi:10.1128/AEM.07113-11. PMC 3264106. PMID 22138989.
  18. ^ "Definition of coprolite | Dictionary.com". dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  19. ^ Poinar, Hendrik N.; et al. (10 April 2001). "A Molecular Analysis of Dietary Diversity for Three Archaic Native Americans". PNAS. 98 (8): 4317–4322. Bibcode:2001PNAS...98.4317P. doi:10.1073/pnas.061014798. PMC 31832. PMID 11296282.
  20. ^ Feder, Kenneth L. (2008). Linking to the Past: A Brief Introduction to Archaeology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533117-2. Archived from the original on 1 August 2020. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  21. ^ Stokstad, Erik (28 July 2000). "Divining Diet and Disease From DNA". Science. 289 (5479): 530–531. doi:10.1126/science.289.5479.530. PMID 10939960. S2CID 83373644.
  22. ^ "Your Home Technical Manual – 3.4d Construction Systems – Mud Brick (Adobe)". Archived from the original on 6 July 2007. Retrieved 9 July 2007.
  23. ^ "Dung Throwing contests". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007.
  24. ^ Marcone, M. (2004). "Composition and properties of Indonesian palm civet coffee (Kopi Luwak) and Ethiopian civet coffee" (PDF). Food Research International. 37 (9): 901–912. doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2004.05.008.
  25. ^ a b Topper, R (15 October 2012). "Elephant Dung Coffee: World's Most Expensive Brew Is Made With Pooped-Out Beans". HuffPost. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
  26. ^ "pure". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) n., 6
  27. ^ "Rohm and Haas Innovation - The Leather Breakthrough". Rohmhaas.com. 1 September 1909. Archived from the original on 19 October 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2012.
  28. ^ Johnson, Steven (2006). The ghost map : the story of London's most terrifying epidemic--and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world. New York: Riverhead Books. ISBN 1-59448-925-4. OCLC 70483471. Archived from the original on 4 March 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  29. ^ Ramachandran, Smriti Kak (19 March 2015). "Cow dung, urine can cure cancer: BJP MP". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 1 October 2019. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  30. ^ "stool". Archived from the original on 11 March 2019. Retrieved 18 April 2017 – via The Free Dictionary.
  31. ^ "Feces definition – Medical Dictionary definitions of popular medical terms easily defined on MedTerms". Medterms.com. 19 March 2012. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  32. ^ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, archived from the original on 25 September 2015, retrieved 17 March 2015.
  33. ^ Steven Dowshen, MD (September 2011). "Stool Test: Bacteria Culture". Kidshealth. Archived from the original on 19 February 2012. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  34. ^ Moore, Alison M. (8 November 2018). "Coprophagy in nineteenth-century psychiatry". Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease. 30 (sup1): 1535737. doi:10.1080/16512235.2018.1535737. PMC 6225515. PMID 30425610.
  35. ^ "Yes, poop is gross. But that's not the only reason for its shameful social stigma". Upworthy. 25 May 2016. Archived from the original on 31 July 2020. Retrieved 8 April 2020.
  36. ^ Goldman, Jason G. "Why do humans hate poo so much?". BBC. Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 8 April 2020.
  37. ^ "The Oral History Of The Poop Emoji (Or, How Google Brought Poop To America)", Fast Company, 18 November 2014, archived from the original on 3 April 2018, retrieved 9 November 2016
  38. ^ Darlin, Damon (7 March 2015), "America Needs its own Emojis", The New York Times, archived from the original on 30 October 2016, retrieved 1 March 2017
  39. ^ Praeger, Dave (2007). Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product. United States: Feral House. ISBN 978-1-932595-21-5.

External links

Look up feces or faeces in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Feces.
Scholia has a topic profile for Bridgeport, Connecticut, Centennial half dollar.
Bridgeport, Connecticut, Centennial half dollar
United States
ValueUS dollars)
Mass12.5 g
Diameter30.61 mm (1.20 in)
Thickness2.15 mm (0.08 in)
EdgeReeded
Composition
  • 90.0% silver
  • 10.0% copper
Silver0.36169 troy oz
Years of minting1936
Mintage25,015
Mint marksNone, all pieces struck at Philadelphia Mint without mint mark.
Obverse
DesignP.T. Barnum
DesignerHenry Kreis
Design date1936
Reverse
DesignStylized eagle
DesignerHenry Kreis
Design date1936

The Bridgeport, Connecticut, Centennial half dollar (also the Bridgeport Centennial half dollar or Bridgeport half dollar) is a commemorative fifty-cent piece issued in 1936 by the United States Bureau of the Mint to honor the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of Bridgeport, Connecticut as a city. Designed by Henry Kreis, the obverse depicts the showman P. T. Barnum, who was one of Bridgeport's most famous residents, was mayor of the city, helped develop it, and is buried there. The reverse depicts a stylized eagle.

Bridgeport authorities wanted a commemorative coin to help fund the centennial celebrations. At the time, Congress was authorizing such coins for even local events, and the Bridgeport half dollar legislation passed Congress without opposition. Kreis had designed the Connecticut Tercentenary half dollar (1935), and he produced designs showing a left-facing Barnum and a modernistic eagle similar to the one on the Connecticut piece.

The coins were vended to the public beginning in September 1936 at a price of $2. Too late for most of the centennial celebrations, the coins nevertheless sold well, though leaving an unsold remainder of several thousand pieces. These were bought up by coin dealers and wholesale quantities were available on the secondary market until the 1970s. The Bridgeport half dollar sells in the low hundreds of dollars, depending on condition.

Background

Bridgeport, the largest city in Connecticut,[1] was named after a drawbridge that local residents were proud of. Settled in 1647,[2] it was an important center during the 17th and 18th centuries, but was not incorporated as a city until 1836.[3] Elias Howe, inventor of the modern sewing machine, built a factory there.[2]

Among Bridgeport's famous residents was P.T. Barnum, the showman, who became mayor of the city, served in the Connecticut Legislature, and is buried there. He endowed the (now defunct) Barnum Museum of Natural History at Tufts University in Massachusetts, but as numismatic writer Arlie Slabaugh Jr. put it, "his greatest monument is the circus. Don't you see that sawdust ring, hear the calliope?"[4] The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus survived until 2017.[5]

Until 1954, the entire mintage of each commemorative coin issues issue was sold by the government at face value to a group named by Congress in authorizing legislation, who then tried to sell the coins at a profit to the public. The new pieces then entered the secondary market, and in early 1936 all earlier commemoratives sold at a premium to their issue prices. The apparent easy profits to be made by purchasing and holding commemoratives attracted many to the coin collecting hobby, where they sought to purchase the new issues. The growing market for such pieces led to many commemorative coin proposals in Congress, to mark anniversaries and benefit (it was hoped) worthy causes, including some of purely local significance.[6] Among these were the Bridgeport piece, intended to fund local celebrations of the city's centennial; the designated group was Bridgeport Centennial, Inc., in charge of the celebrations.[7]

Legislation

P.T. Barnum

A bill for a Bridgeport Centennial half dollar was introduced into the United States Senate by Augustine Lonergan of Connecticut on March 10, 1936.[8] The other Connecticut senator, Francis T. Maloney, had been asked three or four weeks previously to introduce the bill, but Senator Maloney had chosen not to do so because of the many commemorative coin bills already before the Senate.[9] The Bridgeport bill was referred to the Committee on Banking and Currency, and was one of several commemorative coin bills to be considered on March 11, 1936, by a subcommittee led by Colorado's Alva B. Adams.[a][10]

Senator Adams had heard of the commemorative coin abuses of the mid-1930s, with issuers increasing the number of coins needed for a complete set by having them issued at different mints with different mint marks; authorizing legislation placed no prohibition on this.[11] Lyman W. Hoffecker, a Texas coin dealer and official of the American Numismatic Association, testified and told the subcommittee that some issues, like the Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar, first struck in 1926, had been issued over the course of years with different dates and mint marks. Other issues had been entirely bought up by single dealers, and some low-mintage varieties of commemorative coins were selling at high prices. The many varieties and inflated prices for some issues that resulted from these practices angered coin collectors trying to keep their collections current.[12]

On March 26, Adams reported the bill back to the Senate, though with extensive amendments. The coins could only be struck at one mint; there would be a mintage limit of 10,000 coins and no fewer than 5,000 could be made at a time. They would have to be dated 1936, and Bridgeport Centennial, Inc., the organization designated to purchase the coins, had one year to do so. The net proceeds Bridgeport Centennial, Inc. received from selling the coins could only be used for the centennial observances.[13] The bill was brought to the Senate floor on March 27, 1936, the second of six coinage bills being considered one after the other. Like the others, it was amended and passed without recorded discussion or dissent.[14]

The bill reached the House of Representatives on April 1 and was referred to the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures. That committee reported back on the 16th, recommending an amendment to require that not less than 25,000 coins be struck. The amendment deleted the language requiring 5,000 to be minted at a time, as well as the one-year time limit.[15] On April 28, Schuyler Merritt of Connecticut brought the bill to the House floor, asking that it be passed with the recommended amendment, and it was, without any discussion or dissent.[16]

As the two houses had not passed identical versions, this sent the bill back to the Senate. On May 4, Adams moved that the Senate agree to the House amendment, which it did;[17] the bill became law, authorizing not fewer than 25,000 half dollars, with the signature of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 15, 1936.[18] The lack of an upper mintage limit or a time limit for production meant that Bridgeport Centennial, Inc. could have ordered as many coins as it wanted as far into the future as it cared to as long as they were dated 1936. Any such authority was removed by Congress with legislation passed August 5, 1939, directing that commemorative coins authorized before March 1 of that year be no longer struck.[3]

Preparation

P. T. Barnum, sculpted by Thomas Ball (1887), Seaside Park, Bridgeport, Connecticut

On June 10, 1936, Bridgeport mayor Jasper McLevy wrote to Director of the United States Mint Nellie Tayloe Ross, informing her that Henry Kreis, designer of the Connecticut Tercentenary half dollar, had been hired to sculpt the Bridgeport coin, and enclosing sketches of the proposed design. McLevy noted that Barnum was the subject of one side of the coin, and explained that Barnum had presented Seaside Park to the city and had helped develop East Bridgeport. The following day, Ross wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. stating that the Bridgeport designs would be forwarded to the Commission of Fine Arts for its opinion before Morgenthau was called upon to give final approval.[19] The commission was charged by a 1921 executive order by President Warren G. Harding with rendering advisory opinions on public artworks, including coins.[20] She noted that while the question of whether Barnum should appear on the coin was not in the jurisdiction of the commission, that had not stopped it from weighing in against the appearance of Stephen Foster on the Cincinnati Musical Center half dollar.[19]

On June 24, 1936, the commission chair, Charles Moore, wrote to Ross, enclosing comments from Lee Lawrie, sculptor-member of the commission, generally approving of Kreis's designs, but proposing that the words LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST be moved from below Barnum's head on the obverse to the reverse. This, Lawrie suggested, would allow space for the name CONNECTICUT (abbreviated as CONN. on the original) to be rendered in full. Revised models were approved by the commission, and on August 4, the completed models for the coins were sent to Morgenthau by Assistant Director of the Mint Mary M. O'Reilly.[21] The models were converted to coin-sized hubs by the Medallic Art Company of New York in time for coinage to begin in September.[22]

Design

The obverse of the Bridgeport half dollar depicts the bust of P.T. Barnum, a subject that has absorbed much of the commentary on the coin's design. Michael K. Garofalo, in his article on Kreis, stated, "although the portrait bears a very strong likeness to Barnum, the rendering was merely average for the talented Kreis."[23] Anthony Swiatek and Walter Breen, in their volume on commemoratives, aver that "the choice of P.T. Barnum, of all imaginable people ... has less to do with his 'There's a sucker born every minute' cynicism (however applicable this might have been to commemorative coin fanciers in the 1930s) than to his philanthropic benefactions to the city."[7] Breen called Barnum the patron saint of coin collectors.[24] Dealer B. Max Mehl, in his 1937 work on commemoratives, suggested purchasers of the coin were "suckers", and wrote, "we think that Barnum's likeness, in view of his famous remark, is certainly most appropriate".[25]

Mehl also criticized the reverse of the coin:

The eagle (?) on the new Bridgeport half dollar is the biggest joke as a specimen of our noble bird that ever appeared on a coin.[cite references] Not a feather appears on its tin-roof surface, and several beholders said it resembled an airplane. Turn it around and you have a fine shark with two dorsal fins, an open mouth and a tongue. The shark appears to be laughing. I wonder at whom? And how apropos that P.T. Barnum's portrait adorns the other side. He was right in his famous remarks years ago.[25]

Kreis's eagle for the Connecticut Tercentenary half dollar

Q. David Bowers describes Kreis's eagle as modernistic and noted its resemblance to the one the sculptor had created for the Connecticut half dollar.[24] Don Taxay, writing in 1966, concurred, considering the eagle the most modernistic seen on any coin.[26] Coin writer Kevin Flynn called it an "ultra modern eagle".[27] Garofalo stated, "Kreis' highly stylized eagle met with mixed reviews. Critically acclaimed by the art world, it bewildered the public, many of whom did not readily identify the bird as the nation's symbol."[23] Kreis's initial K is found incuse in the lower right.[2]

Swiatek and Breen deemed the coin a "very Art Deco composition".[7] According to Garofalo, "From an artistic standpoint, Kreis' designs for the Bridgeport half dollar were an amazing success. The obverse was conservative and accurate, as a portrait should be, and the reverse was stylish and inspirational."[23] Art historian Cornelius Vermeule, in his volume on U.S. coins and medals, stated that the Bridgeport piece "has been cited as one of the more successful commemorative coins within the broad tradition instituted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens".[28] He described the piece as having "P.T. Barnum in large, thoughtful profile and a thrusting eagle of conceptual, metallic style", and praised the lettering, finding the placement of the patriotic mottos on the reverse done "not inartistically".[28] Vermeule suggested that Kreis was unable to find a suitable Bridgeport-related theme for the reverse, and instead turned "to a new interpretation of elements, such as the eagle, used in the coins of the regular issue. A coin honoring P.T. Barnum could have featured a lion, an elephant, or a performing bear on the reverse, but this product of the civic enterprise of Bridgeport gains great merit for showing an exciting new form of the national bird".[28]

Production, distribution and collecting

In September 1936, a total of 25,015 Bridgeport half dollars were struck at the Philadelphia Mint with 15 pieces reserved for inspection and testing the following year by the annual Assay Commission.[29] They were sold at a price of $2, mostly through local banks in Bridgeport.[30] Mail order sales were processed by the First National Bank of Bridgeport.[29] By this time, many of the centennial celebrations had passed, having begun June 4, though they continued until October 3.[30] Individual coins were sold in small cardboard boxes, with a limit of five per purchaser.[29] Despite its relatively high price and the fact that it was released after many of the centennial celebrations, the coin sold well with both the public and collectors.[31][32]

Several thousand pieces remained unsold, and transferred by the centennial organizers to the Bridgeport Community Chest, which sold them wholesale to coin dealers at a slight advance on face value. In the 1950s, Toivo Johnson, a coin dealer in Maine, possessed about a thousand of them, and rolls of 20 were sold at coin conventions for years after; many were acquired and then sold by a coin investment firm in the early 1970s.[33]

By 1940 the Bridgeport piece sold for about $1.50 in uncirculated condition, though this went up to $2.50 by 1950, $12 by 1960, and $250 by 1985.[34] The deluxe edition of R. S. Yeoman's A Guide Book of United States Coins, published in 2018, lists the coin for between $120 and $300, depending on condition. An exceptional specimen sold for $1,880 in 2015.[35][36]

Notes

  1. ^ In addition to the Bridgeport piece, they were: the Wisconsin Territorial Centennial half dollar, Delaware Tercentenary half dollar, Rhode Island Tercentenary half dollar, New Rochelle 250th Anniversary half dollar, House and Senate versions of the Long Island Tercentenary half dollar, and an unsuccessful proposal for a half dollar honoring William Henry Harrison. In addition, there was a proposal for a new design for the multi-year Arkansas Centennial half dollar, which would pass, and a similar request for the Texas Centennial half dollar, which would fail alongside bills for commemorative medals for Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, a proposal to revive the three-cent nickel, and a bill to declare it the policy of the U.S. to strike commemorative medals instead of commemorative coins.[10]

References

  1. ^ Scinto, Rich (June 3, 2019). "Here's How Each CT Town's Population Changed In 2018". Patch Media. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c Slabaugh, p. 121.
  3. ^ a b Bowers, p. 323.
  4. ^ Slabaugh, pp. 121–122.
  5. ^ Graham, Bryan Armen (May 22, 2017). "'Sanctuary of joy': performers and crowds bid farewell to Ringling Bros circus". The Guardian. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
  6. ^ Bowers, pp. 62–63.
  7. ^ a b c Swiatek & Breen, p. 33.
  8. ^ "S.4229" (PDF). March 26, 1936 – via ProQuest.
  9. ^ Senate hearings, pp. 1, 15.
  10. ^ a b Senate hearings, pp. title page, 1–2.
  11. ^ Senate hearings, pp. 11–12.
  12. ^ Senate hearings, pp. 18–23.
  13. ^ "S.4229" (PDF). March 26, 1936 – via ProQuest.
  14. ^ 1936 Congressional Record, Vol. 82, Page 4489–4490 (March 27, 1936)
  15. ^ "S.4229" (PDF). April 16, 1936 – via ProQuest.
  16. ^ 1936 Congressional Record, Vol. 82, Page 6314 (April 28, 1936)
  17. ^ 1936 Congressional Record, Vol. 82, Page 6611 (May 4, 1936)
  18. ^ Flynn, pp. 354–355.
  19. ^ a b Flynn, pp. 262–263.
  20. ^ Taxay, pp. v–vi.
  21. ^ Flynn, pp. 263–264.
  22. ^ Swiatek & Breen, pp. 33–34.
  23. ^ a b c Garofalo, p. 44.
  24. ^ a b Bowers, p. 324.
  25. ^ a b Mehl, p. 38.
  26. ^ Taxay, p. 204.
  27. ^ Flynn, p. 61.
  28. ^ a b c Vermeule, p. 196.
  29. ^ a b c Swiatek & Breen, p. 34.
  30. ^ a b Bowers, p. 325.
  31. ^ "1936 Bridgeport 50C MS Silver Commemoratives". www.ngccoin.com. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
  32. ^ "1936 Bridgeport Centennial Half Dollar Commemorative Coin". Retrieved April 15, 2019.
  33. ^ Bowers, pp. 325–326.
  34. ^ Bowers, p. 327.
  35. ^ Yeoman, p. 1086.
  36. ^ "1936 50C Bridgeport MS67+ PCGS. CAC..." Heritage Auctions. Retrieved January 12, 2020.

Sources

External links

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