American Art Collaborative

James Hazen Hyde (1876-1959) helped to found the Federation of Alliances Françaises in the United States in 1902. The different chapters of this organization collaborated with the Alliance Française (established in Paris in 1883) to promote French language, literature, and culture in American communities. In Paul Manship’s design for the reverse of the medal, the heads of women representing Africa, Asia, and North America symbolize France’s colonial territories from the eighteenth century to the period just after World War II. The irregular edges of this piece mark it as a “splasher,” in which the molten metal was stamped with the die to gauge the sharpness of Manship’s design