An unofficial design of the $100 bill featuring Harriet Tubman – an African-American abolitionist during the Civil War.
Get ready for the Sawbuck to become a lot less masculine, as the advocates requesting for a woman to be featured on the $20 bill and the U.S. Treasury finally reached a compromise: redesigning the $10 bill.
According to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, the new notes are scheduled to enter the economy in 2020, partly as a way of celebrating 100 years since women received the right to vote by constitutional amendment.
Lew added that this decision of putting a woman on the $10 bill is also a step up on the democracy ladder, reflecting hopeful aspirations for the future in the same way it honors the past.
In this extremely digitalized era, the general public is allowed to offer suggestions on who should Alexander Hamilton – the very first U.S. secretary of the Treasury – be replaced with; you can either go on the New 10 website or tweet your replacement with the hashtag #theNew10.
Current celebrities such as movie stars are not viable options, however, so you might as well stay clear of that. The law says it’s not allowed to have a living person featured on U.S. currency. Lew explained that whoever comes next on the new note, it will be democracy-themed.
Before the U.S. Treasury threw the $10 bill curve ball, supporters wanted Andrew Jackson to be replaced by a woman on the $20 bill. To this day, both houses of Congress are to review bills on this matter.
Earlier in 2015, an unofficial campaign called “Women on 20s” allowed people to vote on who they wanted to see on the $20 bill instead of Jackson, and Harriet Tubman – an African-American abolitionist during the Civil War – was the choice of more than 100,000 voters.
Even President Barack Obama seemed interested in the movement, as he talked in a September speech about a young girl who questioned him via letter about the complete absence of women from the U.S. currency.
Instead of taking up the $20 bill initiative, the Treasury chose instead to redesign the $10, which was long overdue. Among the many factors that are usually taken into consideration when currency is redesigned, the most important one is “addressing current and potential counterfeiting threats.”
So the new $10 bill will not only be featuring a woman, but also a tactile improvement that will allow the visually impaired to handle money with more ease.
A country’s currency is also a sign of where is the nation heading to, and that’s why the Treasury will release a completely new series of paper currency starting 2020, with all of their designs referring to the theme of democracy.
Image Source: New Republic
Ryan Harris
