 With the passage of the Pittman Act in 1918 , the United States Mint was required to strike millions of silver dollars , and began to do so in 1921 , using the Morgan dollar design . Numismatists began to lobby the Mint to issue a coin that memorialized the peace following World War I ; although they failed to get Congress to pass a bill requiring the redesign , they were able to persuade government officials to take action . The Peace dollar was approved by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon in December 1921 , completing the redesign of United States coinage that had begun in 1907 . 
