The United States Mint American Innovation $1 Coin Program is a multi-year series to honor innovation and innovators with $1 coins from each State, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands.

 Delaware— the first of four to be released in 2019. It features Annie Jump Cannon, a Delaware-born internationally recognized astronomer who invented a system for classifying stars still in use today.

Pennsylvania — the second in the series. It focuses on the extraordinary work of Dr. Jonas Salk and his team at the University of Pittsburgh in the discovery of the polio vaccine. This discovery changed the landscape of growing up and living in America. Prior to the vaccine, the Nation was gripped with fear about the ravages of polio. The vaccine’s discovery was hailed by the American Medical Association as “one of the greatest events in the history of medicine.”

New Jersey— the third to be released in the series. It features an electric lightbulb, developed by Thomas Edison and his team of researchers, who made light bulbs available to the public. Prior to Edison and his researchers, earlier light bulbs from the 1830s had very short lifespans, used too much energy, or were simply too expensive to produce. By 1879, Edison and his team had managed to produce a bulb with a filament that could last 14.5 hours, and with continued work, they managed to improve to a filament with a lifetime of 1,200 hours. This marked the beginning of commercially manufactured light bulbs, giving people easy control over light in homes and businesses, drastically changing infrastructure, business, and society.

Georgia— the fourth released in 2019. In the early 1730’s, following the founding of the Georgia Colony, James Oglethorpe established what is considered the first agricultural experimental garden in America. Known as the Trustees’ Garden, this 10-acre plot of land in Savannah reflected the scientific and commercial aspirations of the trustees and their backers in England. The trustees hoped to grow grapes for wine production and mulberry trees to feed silk worms essential for silk production. But they, also imported plants from around the world to determine the best crops for the Georgia climate.

The obverse design features a dramatic representation of the Statue of Liberty in profile with the inscriptions “IN GOD WE TRUST” and “$1.” The obverse also includes a privy mark of a stylized gear, representing industry and innovation.

The edge-incused inscriptions are “2019,” “S” mint mark, and “E PLURIBUS UNUM.”