Philadelphia Teacher Anna Willess Williams: She Became the Face of "Lady Liberty"

On many occasions a talented educator will gain notoriety for reasons that have nothing to do with the field of education. Such was certainly the case with Anna Willess Williams, a Philadelphia schoolteacher, who is best known for being the model for the image of  Lady Liberty on the Morgan silver dollar coin.


Anna was born in Philadelphia in 1857. In 1876, when she was just an eighteen-year-old art student, she was asked to pose for engraver George T. Morgan, an acquaintance of a friend of her father, who had been commissioned to produce a new series of coin designs for the U.S. Mint. For his design, Morgan wanted to use the image of an American girl. After rejecting several candidates, Morgan selected Anna as his model because was so impressed with her profile, commenting that it was the most perfect he had seen in the country. He described her as being fair in complexion, “with blue eyes and a Grecian nose,” with hair that was "almost her crowning glory… golden color, abundant, and light of texture," worn in an attractive classical style.


After being promised that her identity would always be kept confidential, the young art student sat for five sessions in November, 1876. By the time the silver dollar bearing her likeness was first struck on March 11, 1878, Anna had begun her career as a teacher. To Anna’s dismay, her identity as the image’s model was revealed shortly after the coin was released, resulting in instant fame. Anna received thousands of letters and visits at both her home and work place, and she was very disturbed by the attention. In her later years, she preferred not to discuss her modelling work with Morgan, dismissing the experience as an "incident of my youth."


Anna refused offers for acting and stage work, and chose to continue in her position as a teacher at the House of Refuge. In 1891, she left her job as the principal at that school to become a teacher of kindergarten philosophy at Girls’ Normal School in Philadelphia. Though she was once engaged to an unknown suitor, Anna never married. She retired from the teaching profession in 1924. She passed away from complications suffered from a bad fall on April 17, 1926, at the age of sixty-eight.