103551 | UNITED STATES. "Old World, New World" bronze Medal.

103551  |  UNITED STATES. "Old World, New World" bronze Medal. Issued 1939 (73mm, 163.23 g, 12h). By Edward McCartan for the Society of Medalists.

 

Draped female, wearing head cloth, kneeling left, cradling nude child and raising arm in horror; above, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse flying right; in background, castle to left, ruins to right; gas mask in foreground to left; in exergue in two lines, THE OLD WORLD / 1939 // Female in dress, crouching left, reading book, and instructing child; in background, cityscape to left, forest to right; radiant sunrise in sky; in two lines in exergue, THE NEW WORLD / 1939. Edge: THE SOCIETY OF MEDALISTS NINETEENTH ISSUE 1939   EDWARD MCCARTAN SCULPTOR   MEDALLIC ART CO. N.Y. BRONZE.

 

Alexander SOM-19.1. Choice Mint State. Even tan-brown surfaces.

 

This medal was issued just after the outbreak of conflict in Europe, with the horror of the still-recent World War I fresh on everyone's mind. In the "From the Artist" pamphlet about the medal's design, McCarten stated "...the broad Atlantic Ocean thankfully isolates us from forces which destroy life and liberty and which impede the normal pursuit of happiness. I have attempted to portray the fortunate position of the American home maker contrasted with her European sister who lives from day to day in a paralysis of fear and hate and regimentation. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—Pestilence, Death, Famine, War—are riding high across the Eastern Hemisphere. I hope that in design and execution the medal has merit not only because it symbolizes the social forces which influence the lives of the Old World peoples and the New World peoples but also because it is a permanent, artistic record of rapid fire events in 1939." As we now know well, the ocean did not protect us, and war did find us. In a connected, global world, it is difficult for any nation, directly involved or not, to avoid the consequences and actions chosen by any particular country or régime. Case in point, the folly in which we now find ourselves, and the effect that it has had, and continues to have, upon countless other countries.

 

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Upload: 16 April 2026.

 

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