Anti-slavery campaigner Harriet Tubman is set to become the first woman to appear on the front of a bill of US currency, having been given pride of place on the new $20 note.
She replaces former president Andrew Jackson, who was himself a slave owner. And they say that Americans don’t understand irony. Jackson will not be removed altogether, but instead will appear on the reverse of the bill.
The changes were announced last week by the US Treasury Department, but the decision wasn’t as straightforward as they’d expected. Millions of Americans got involved with the discussion, and the Treasury found that their original idea of founding father Alexander Hamilton losing his spot on the front of the $10 note – a place he’s held onto since 1928 – was not popular.
“When I announced last June that a newly redesigned $10 note would feature a woman, I hoped to encourage a national conversation about women in our democracy. The response has been powerful,” US Treasury secretary Jack Lew said in a statement. “The decision to put Harriet Tubman on the new $20 was driven by thousands of responses we received from Americans young and old.”
Lew announced details of the three bills – $5, $10 and $20 – that are undergoing a redesign.
The Federal Reserve chair, Janet Yellen, said: “Throughout American history, women have made important contributions to the free and democratic society we enjoy today. I welcome the decision by the Treasury Department to honor these achievements.”
The US Treasury’s decision aligns with the people’s preferred choice of woman to front the $20 bill. Women on 20s, a not-for-profit group, last year held a vote to choose a woman to oust Jackson from his position. With 118,328 votes, Tubman came out ahead of a Native American tribe leader, Wilma Mankiller, the former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the civil rights activist Rosa Parks.
In case this is the first time you’ve heard of Harriet Tubman, here’s a short bio. Born into slavery in the 1820s, she is best known in the US for the role she played smuggling slaves to safety via the Underground Railroad, but she had an equally remarkable involvement in the US civil war. For a woman to be involved at all in the military during that period is unusual. Couple this with the fact that she played a part in liberating hundreds of slaves in her lifetime, and you begin to form a picture of this extraordinary woman. Sadly, she died in 1913, just seven years too early to see women win the right to vote in the US.
Back to Jack Lew. “When we started this conversation not quite a year ago, it wasn’t clear to me that millions of Americans were going to weigh in with their ideas,” he said. “We’re not just talking about one bill. We’re talking about the $5, the $10 and the $20. We’re not just talking about one picture on one bill. We’re talking about using the front and the back of the bill to tell an exciting set of stories.”
The new $5 bill will be given a makeover from behind to feature key figures from the civil rights era, including Martin Luther King. The front will continue to depict Abraham Lincoln. Meanwhile, the new design for the back of the $10 bill features an assortment of leaders from the women’s rights movement.
Lew’s original plan was to replace Hamilton with Susan B Anthony, but she will now feature on the back instead, having previously appeared on a $1 coin.
It’s good to see the gender imbalance being addressed, because until now there has been a noticeable scarcity of women appearing on US currency.
A special $1 certificate featured first lady Martha Washington, and a previous version of the $20 bill featured Pocahontas (the human, not the Disney character). This makes Harriet Tubman the first woman to be pictured on the front of a US note.
They’ve still got a bit of catching up to do with our Australian currency, then.
It’s still going to be another four years before the design is actually unveiled. 2020 is a significant year because it marks the 100th anniversary of women being allowed to vote, so perhaps the Treasury is dragging it out on purpose.
Why the support for Hamilton?
Public outcry caused Lew to change his original plan to remove Alexander Hamilton from pride of place on the $10 bill.
The founding father’s story has been turned into a popular Broadway musical, imaginatively entitled “Hamilton”. Author and star Lin-Manuel Miranda was among those who publicly spoke out against the proposed change.
Lew attended the show last summer and in March the cast visited him at the White House, where Lew apparently told them “You’re going to be very happy.”
Another who wanted to see Hamilton stay put was former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke.
“Hamilton’s demotion is intended to make room to honor a deserving woman on the face of our currency. That’s a fine idea, but it shouldn’t come at Hamilton’s expense,” he wrote last year.
Americans seem pretty positive about Tubman replacing Jackson on the front of the $20 bill, with Democratic presidential candidates some of the first to speak up.
“A woman, a leader, and a freedom fighter,” Hillary Clinton tweeted. “I can’t think of a better choice for the $20 bill than Harriet Tubman.”
Bernie Sanders followed closely after, tweeting in agreement that he “cannot think of an American hero more deserving of this honor than Harriet Tubman.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) tweeted that it was “great news!” and “the right call,” adding “The redesign needs to happen as soon as possible. Women have waited long enough.”
Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), mastermind of the “Put a Woman on the Twenty Act in Congress” last year, also applauded the decision.
“There has been a lot of talk about putting a woman’s portrait on our money, but finally it sounds like Secretary Lew is putting our money where his mouth is,” said Gutiérrez in a statement. “It is crazy that women have been mostly absent from our money up until now, with only a few exceptions.”
Jennifer Friedman, deputy press secretary for the White House, said President Barack Obama was pleased with the outcome and also the interest that the American public had shown in the matter. “The President welcomes Secretary Lew’s important announcement that our next currency will honor the contributions that women and civil rights leaders have made to our country, celebrate our democracy and reflect the rich history of the United States and the struggles for freedom and equal rights,” Friedman said.
But not everyone came out in favour of the decision.
Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon and former Republican presidential candidate, acknowledged that Tubman deserves recognition but suggested that the $2 note would be a more appropriate spot for her.
Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander seemed disgruntled at the change, pointing out that the two figures are not in competition with each other (well they kinda were, historically).
“United States history is not Andrew Jackson versus Harriet Tubman,” he said in a statement. “It is Andrew Jackson and Harriet Tubman, both heroes of a nation’s work in progress toward great goals. It is unnecessary to diminish Jackson in order to honor Tubman.”
Kari Winter, director of the gender institute at the University at Buffalo, made her support known in no uncertain terms. “[Hamilton] is fully appropriate to be on American currency, whereas Jackson was a scoundrel, a slave holder and a white supremacist who was involved in the removal of Indians and was completely opposed to paper money and was horrible to women,” she said.
Ben Bernanke, Mr “That’s a fine idea, but…,” has called the new plan “a good one”, saying that it falls in line with his recommendations.
“Tubman is an excellent and deserving choice, and no one has a better claim to be represented on the currency than Hamilton, who did so much to help establish the American economic system we know today,” he wrote following the announcement.
Bernanke also suggested that bills be redesigned more frequently, just like stamps. He makes a good point. “Occasional changes to bill design would give us more space and flexibility to honor the past; and, if done at reasonable intervals, could coincide with necessary security improvements as well,” he said.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen also touched on the issue of security, saying that “The Federal Reserve will work with Treasury on a design that also incorporates strong security features to protect worldwide users of U.S. currency.”
U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios spoke about the planned security features, adding “For the first time in our history, our currency will also include a new tech-help feature intended to aid the blind and the visually impaired,” Rios said. “This is a new, complex and critical, important element in the production of modern U.S. currency.”
