For the first time in more than a century, a woman will
finally get space on the nation’s paper currency but she may have to share it
with a man.
The $10 bill, up for a redesign in 2020, will feature a
female face, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced Wednesday. He’s also
considering keeping Alexander Hamilton, the current resident of the bill and
the nation’s first Treasury secretary, on some of the notes.
The decision to change the ten-spot came as feminist groups
have been pushing for a woman on the currency in 2020 to mark the 100th
anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Sharing
space with Hamilton who not only conceived the nation’s financial system but
also served as a protagonist in the nation’s first sex scandal wasn’t exactly
what they had in mind.
A nonprofit organization, Women On 20s (Slogan: “A woman’s
place is on the money”), has been campaigning instead to get rid of Andrew
Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, whose face appears on the $20 bill.
Jackson’s record of removing Native Americans from their land and his
opposition to the central banking system made him a good candidate to be
yanked, they’ve argued.
Harriet Tubman was the winner of a poll the organization
conducted to determine which woman should replace Jackson.
U.S. currency has rarely undergone major redesigns, but in
2013, the $10 bill was chosen for a remake partly to beef up protections
against counterfeit threats, the Treasury said.
Lew said putting a woman on a bill had been under
consideration well before his tenure at Treasury began, and President Barack
Obama endorsed the idea last year, when he called it a “pretty good idea”
during a July speech about the economy in Kansas City.
The Obama administration will be considering nominations of
prominent women in U.S. history over the coming months and expects to announce
its selection at the end of the summer, the Treasury said.
Lew said it was “personally very important” to him to
preserve Hamilton’s place of honor on the $10. So whether it’s by printing $10s
with different faces, or with multiple portraits on a single one, the woman
will have to share with Hamilton.
In fact, Hamilton shared his bed with more than one woman
making him one of the first subjects of a political sex scandal.
While his wife, Elizabeth, and kids were staying with
relatives, Hamilton began an affair with a young woman named Maria Reynolds in
1791. He was secretary of the Treasury at the time, and Reynolds and her
husband started extorting money from Hamilton. Hamilton eventually confessed to
the affair in full detail in a pamphlet that also featured letters between him
and his mistress.
Source: Politico
0 Comments