Hathaway, Isaac Scott
(born: 1872 - died: 1967)Isaac S. Hathaway was born in Lexington, KY, the son of Robert Elijah Hathaway and Rachel Scott Hathaway. His father had been enslaved by Garret Davis, a U.S. Senator from Bourbon County, KY.
Isaac Hathaway was a sculptor; the Booker T. Washington and Carver Washington half dollars were designed by Hathaway, the first African American to design a U.S. coin.
He constructed a model for the Wayne suicide case in 1904 and made reproductions for the Smithsonian Institute of the Bath-Furnace meteorite that fell in Sharpsburg, KY in 1904. He was the first African American working professionally to be shown in a movie newsreel.
For more see Who's Who in Colored America, 1950; Isaac Hathaway, Sculptur born, a website by The African American Registry; "Meet Isaac Scott Hathaway" at the Explore Pine Bluff website; "Honoring Isaac S. Hathaway: First African American U.S. Mint Coin Designer" at the University of North Carolina University Libraries Exhibits website; and "Isaac Scott Hathaway: Artist and Teacher," Negro History Bulletin, vol. 21, no, 4 (January 1958), pp. 74, 78-81.
