Profile profile for FeingoldE

Ellen Feingold

Curator of the National Numismatic Collection

B.A., University of Wisconsin – Madison, History
MSc., University of Oxford (St. Antony’s College), Economic and Social History
D.Phil., University of Oxford (Merton College), History

Research Specialties:

History of money and monetary objects
History of counterfeiting and forgery
Imperial and global history, focusing on mechanisms of colonial rule and the process of decolonization
History of the common law and legal institutions in sub-Saharan Africa

Role in Museum:

Dr. Ellen Feingold is the curator of the National Numismatic Collection (NNC), a global collection of approximately 1.6 million objects that span more than 3,500 years. She also serves as team leader for a group of curators in the Division of Work and Industry working on global history topics including the history of philanthropy, African American history, and Asian Pacific American history.

Projects:

Exhibitions:

Project director and co-curator of BIG MONEY, forthcoming 2020
Project director and curator of The Value of Money, 2015 - present
Project director and curator of Women on Money, 2016 - 2019

Current Collecting and Digitization Initiatives:

Co-PI with Dr. Leigh Gardner for research-led digitzation of the NNC's West African currency collection, funded ($50,000) by the Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fund at the London School of Economics
Collecting contemporary currencies and documenting the development of new monetary technologies worldwide

Selected Publications:

Books:

Feingold, Ellen R. Colonial Justice and Decolonization in the High Court of Tanzania, 1920-1971. Palgrave Macmillan (Cambridge Imperial and Post-colonial Studies Series), 2018.

Feingold, Ellen R. The Value of Money. Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2015.

Articles:

Feingold, Ellen R. "International Currency Counterfeiting Schemes in Interwar West Africa." Journal of West African History 3, no. 1 (2017): 77-101.

Feingold, Ellen R. "How the Redesign of U.S. Money Shows the Power of Protest." Smithsonian Magazine, 2016.

Feingold, Ellen. R. "Women on Money." Financial History 118 (2016): 20-23.

Feingold, Ellen R. "Popularizing Money: Farran Zerbe and the Chase Manhattan Money Museum Collection." (in progress)

Awards, Honors, and Special Recognition:

As a student at the University of Oxford, Ellen held the Clarendon Scholarship, John Roberts Scholarship, Beit Research Scholarship, and Designated Research Studentship in Modern History. She received numerous grants in support of her doctoral research on the development and decolonization of the High Court of Tanzania. She was also awarded a special prize from the Robert Herbert Memorial Fund for her research on the history of the British Colonial Legal Service. After completing her doctorate, Ellen joined the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum as a Project Curator for the Money in Africa project. She was a co-curator of a display on mobile money in Africa in the Citi Money Gallery in 2013.

Professional Affiliations: