Frank Gasparro was the Tenth Chief Engraver of the United States Mint from 1965 to 1981. A sculptor and artist, he is recognized for designing a U.S. penny, also known as the Lincoln Memorial cent, which had more than 100 billion circulations. He is also known for designing the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin, the first U.S. coin to feature a "real" (once-living) American female. 

Gasparro was born on August 26, 1909, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Rose and Leonardo Gasparro and the grandson of Italian immigrants. As a child, he lived off Eighth and Carpenter Streets, close to Passyunk Square, a part of the city that bustled with Italian culture. Gasparro was the oldest of seven children and his father wanted him to become a musician following in his own footsteps. He did not approve of Gasparro’s passion for art, often tearing up Gasparro’s drawings because artists "starved to death" (Martin). Eventually, however, Leonardo realized his son would not be dissuaded and sent him to the Graphic Sketch Club, now named the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial. Established philanthropically by Fleisher, a woolens factory owner, to provide free art classes, the Club was aimed at and provided opportunities for lower-income youth like Gasparro. 

At age twelve, Gasparro became an apprentice to Giuseppe Donato, a Philadelphia mentee of famed sculptors Auguste Rodin and Victor David Brenner. Donato encouraged Gasparro to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA). After graduating from South Philadelphia High School in 1927, Gasparro did just that, working at the Western Union as a messenger and clerk to support his studies. His talents earned him two Cresson Traveling Scholarships to study abroad in Europe from 1930 to 1931. Yet, when he returned to the United States, finding work amid the Great Depression was difficult. To support his family, Gasparro carved stone figures for Philadelphia-area cemeteries. In 1937, he was employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Arts Project. During this period, Gasparro put his sculpture skills to work creating a statue of a young Benjamin Franklin for a local high school.

In 1942, Gasparro applied to the United States Mint, specifically its engraving department which was located in Philadelphia. His previous arts training, apprenticeships, and employments in the region substantially helped to launch his career with coinage, since engraving involves designing and sculpting models from which dies are produced and coins are subsequently manufactured. After two denials, he received a position as the Mint’s first junior engraver, earning $2,300 a year. At the time, the Mint also produced coinage for other countries, so Gasparro’s first assignment was the reverse of the Guatemalan 25-centavos coin, which displayed Guatemala’s National Palace. In the numismatic book The Complete Guide to Lincoln Cents, Gasparro recalled the challenges of creating his first piece: "When my work was reduced on the reducing lathe, the die from my design had to strike the coin properly. I didn’t get any second chances. Luckily, it came out ok" (Lange 35).

In 1958, Gasparro won a nationwide competition to design a new version of the Lincoln penny to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the former president’s birth. Gasparro’s design was chosen among twenty-one entries and in 1959 the new cent appeared. The coin featured the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse including the Lincoln statue in the middle and the initials "FG" off to the side of the steps. It was the first U.S. coin to have the likeness of one person on both sides. In 1965, following the retirement of Chief Engraver Gilroy Roberts, Gasparro was appointed to Roberts’ position by President Lyndon B. Johnson (United States Congress 2539). Thus, he designed other important coins and medals in the years that followed.

While the Lincoln Memorial cent was a significant accomplishment, Gasparro described the Susan B. Anthony dollar as his "top achievement" in a 1981 New York Times interview. During the economic recession of the 1970s, he was assigned to work on a new, smaller coin to replace the Eisenhower dollar he had previously designed. Gasparro first proposed an image of Liberty with flowing hair on the obverse (front) and a soaring eagle over a rising sun for the reverse. While attractive to numismatists, the idealized imagery drew criticism from women’s rights advocates. U.S. Representative Mary Rose Oakar and U.S. Senator Patricia Schroeder, who believed that a real female should be depicted on the coin, introduced legislation to feature Susan B. Anthony, a women’s suffrage advocate, instead. After their bill passed, Gasparro initially portrayed Anthony as "young and comely," a depiction that was disliked by some commentators, including some of Anthony’s descendants (Zielinski). Gasparro’s finalized Susan B. Anthony had a square jaw, hooked nose, and drooping skin, a portrayal which some have viewed as "harsh" while others have seen as capturing Anthony’s real-life look and the toll fifty years of political fighting took on her (Murray 38). It appears that Gasparro identified this project as a personal achievement because of the perseverance it required, being "the most trying experience" of his career (Reiter). Today, the SBA dollar, as it is known among some collectors, has a complex reputation. In the short term, it was unpopular among American consumers and business owners because it too closely resembled the quarter dollar coin. However, as inflation continued in the 1980s and 1990s, the SBA dollar became more commonly used, especially in public transportation and vending machine transactions, to the point that supplies ran out in the late 1990s and it was re-issued. The SBA dollar became an important learning experience toward designing the Sacagawea "golden" dollar which replaced it in 2000. It also influenced the Mint’s efforts in public engagement concerning redesigns of the U.S. quarter, which have similarly featured notable men, women, landmarks, and events from American history. 

Frank Gasparro retired in 1981 after serving forty years at the U.S. Mint. His penny design was used for fifty years, until 2009, when the Lincoln Memorial image was replaced by four different designs to commemorate the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. Aside from the Lincoln Memorial penny and the Susan B. Anthony dollar, Gasparro created the reverse for the Kennedy half dollar and both sides of the Eisenhower dollar during the 1960s. In 1979, two years before his retirement, Gasparro also designed the John Wayne Congressional Medal, a three-inch bronze medal honoring the actor. Sales exceeded $1 million and it was one of the best-selling medals ever issued by the Mint. 

While Gasparro’s talent is still evident in peoples’ pockets across the nation, he stayed true to his Pennsylvania roots. In his retirement years, he continued to teach art at Fleisher. In 1990, the institution honored him with its first-ever Founder’s Award, including a silver medal designed by Gasparro himself. He amassed many other accolades. For example, he was the 1968 recipient of the American Numismatic Association (ANA)’s Numismatic Art Award for Excellence in Medallic Sculpture. He was the engraver of the ANA’s 1991 Centenary Medal and he was an honoree namesake for the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists’ Frank Gasparro Award. He also sat on the Board of Directors at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Society of Medalists, and the French Society of the Medal.

On September 29, 2001, at the age of 92, Frank Gasparro passed away at Mercy Community Hospital in Havertown, PA, two weeks after he finished his last art class. At the time, he was survived by his wife Julia Gasparro, his daughter Christina Hansen, and his brothers.