Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Awards: Centenary Medal

From the 2002 PHS Awards Presentation program:

"...the Centenary Medal [ is not to] be  awarded yearly, or at any definite period, but [is] held for special occasions or for special individuals whom the Society may wish, from time to time, to honor." Report by William J. Serrill, chairman of the Centennial Celebration Committee, October 1927. (Boyd, p. 341)

The Centenary Medal presented to James Boyd is in the Archives of the Mclean Library at PHS. The obverse design is a bust of Horace Binney, an organizer of the Society and its first president (1828). He also served as president from 1836 to 1841. The reverse of the medal depicts Bartram's Garden. In the 1920's the Society provided financial support to Bartram's Garden, America's first botanical garden. No specific mention of the reverse design appears in the Society's minutes.

The first Centenary Medal was minted by Medallic Art Company, New York City. Founded in 1903, Medallic designed and produced custom and commermorative medals such as the Pulitzer Prize, the Peabody Award, the Newbery and Caldecott medals, and the Inaugural medals for eleven U.S. presidents. 

Quoted material from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society 1827-1927 by James Boyd, published by the Society in 1929.