The 19th century picked up an idea or two from ancient Greece. The Greeks liked to worship abstract ideas like Love or Honor. It’s hard to see those things, so they represented them as beautiful women. This makes sense, because to hetero men, nothing is more attractive than a beautiful woman, and who else matters?
I grew up in DC, where there’s lots and lots of statues of Virtue and Temperance and the like.
They just don’t make abstractions the way they used to - I blame the existentialists.
Bring back Liberty personified to our notes and coins. Dead presidents are so much less interesting to look at. Liberty can be depicted so many ways, including Xena-like e.g. the standing liberty quarter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_Liberty_quarter#/media/File:Standing_Liberty_Quarter_Type2m_1926_Obverse.png
Love master engravers who created such works. Stamp collecting is much cheaper, but you can find some really cool mini engravings out there.
History is getting a little gropey with that kid’s butt on the $1.
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