Campaign Seeks to Put a Woman on the $20 Bill

[Mayerling]

I don't think it's out of order to replace some people on the currency. I for one would expect to see Frederick Douglas and Sandra Day OConner.

On the other hand, in my soul I'd want Margaret Sanger, Diane Nash, Deborah Sampson, Nellie Bly, and La Baker, but that's me.

The main problems about replacing pictures or images on bills is the expense involved in re - engraving the notes and the issue of the ease of recognizable notes with the public. That (I think) is why the U.S. bank notes have retained the idea of "dead white guys" on them since the 1930s. With the exception of the $2.00 Jefferson bill, all of the bills are easy to recognize and use quickly. There have been changes in the size of the portraits and their positions on the notes, in the colored inks on the notes, even in the choice of image (Lincoln's, Franklin's, Jackson's). But some changes were necessary. If one looked at the old $10.00 notes, the back had the treasury building in Washington, D.C. on the back up to the end of the last century. If you look at one of those old notes, nobody at the Bureau of Engraving apparently noticed that the automobile seen driving towards the person holding and looking at the note was one built about 1928. That could have been updated.

The $2.00 bill might be changed in appearance - Jefferson looked too much when looked at quickly like Washington, and as it is worth two $1.00 Washington notes, one could stand lose some cash here. I recently was in a bank and asked the teller helping me if he ever got requests for $2.00 bills. As a matter of fact the teller explained that there has been so little request for such a bill that they had stopped ordering them from the Treasury Department.

Jeff

[kensei]

America might be somewhat limited on who we put on our money, but we make up for it in the enormous range of figures that appear on our postage stamps- male, female, human, animal, real, fictional-- everything under the sun.

[GUT]

Had Lord Cornwallis been luckier in the South and at Yorktown, our currency would have "Lizzie" on it too!

Canada has it's Prime Ministers on it's paper currency, like Laurier and MacDonald. When I was in Britain in the 1990s they had bills with the faces of Charles Dickens (and a scene from "Oliver Twist") and George Stevenson with "the Rocket" on their currency. More recently I noticed that New Zealand put Sir Edmund Hillary on one of their notes.

Jeff

Yep Cornwallis let you down, on behalf of my however many times great uncle I am sorry.

[GUT]

Oliver North? No one remembers him anymore...

What about Alfred E. Neumann from "Mad" magazine with his slogan, "What, me worry?"

Definitely Alfred.

[Mayerling]

Yep Cornwallis let you down, on behalf of my however many times great uncle I am sorry.

G'day GUT,

Actually GUT Cornwallis (for all his possible faults) did not let us down. Up to a point his scheme for detaching the southern colonies was working, but then Washington sent Nathaniel Greene to replace the incompetent Horatio Gates as commander. But far worse for his lordship was the imbecilic waffling of his commander in New York City, Sir Henry Clinton, who would not send the men and material Cornwallis needed to protect his gains and extend his supply lines. The result was that Cornwallis had to slowly retreat into Virginia, and got trapped on the Yorktown peninsula.

There is contemporary evidence to show whom the British Government and people regarded as responsible for the debacle of October 1781. After the war ended, Cornwallis was treated as a hero in England, and became Viceroy of India (and later Governor General of Ireland, in time for the 1798 rebellion, which he put down). Clinton...he drifted off into well merited obscurity - his only achievement (why I can't understand, as he mourned the loss of his adjutant Major John Andre) was to insure General Benedict Arnold got land in British North America (in New Brunswick) as payment for his treason - which had led to Andre's sad fate), and that Arnold's sons got positions in the British army.

When you mentioned a "many times great uncle", are you related to the Earl?

Jeff

[Robert]

Strewth! An Aussie aristo!

[Errata]

The main problems about replacing pictures or images on bills is the expense involved in re - engraving the notes and the issue of the ease of recognizable notes with the public. That (I think) is why the U.S. bank notes have retained the idea of "dead white guys" on them since the 1930s. With the exception of the $2.00 Jefferson bill, all of the bills are easy to recognize and use quickly. There have been changes in the size of the portraits and their positions on the notes, in the colored inks on the notes, even in the choice of image (Lincoln's, Franklin's, Jackson's). But some changes were necessary. If one looked at the old $10.00 notes, the back had the treasury building in Washington, D.C. on the back up to the end of the last century. If you look at one of those old notes, nobody at the Bureau of Engraving apparently noticed that the automobile seen driving towards the person holding and looking at the note was one built about 1928. That could have been updated.

The $2.00 bill might be changed in appearance - Jefferson looked too much when looked at quickly like Washington, and as it is worth two $1.00 Washington notes, one could stand lose some cash here. I recently was in a bank and asked the teller helping me if he ever got requests for $2.00 bills. As a matter of fact the teller explained that there has been so little request for such a bill that they had stopped ordering them from the Treasury Department.

Jeff

I don't think it's that big of a deal. I mean we've been putting different states on quarters for a very long time now, and are well into the national parks, and coin dies are much harder to make than bill plates.

[GUT]

G'day GUT,


When you mentioned a "many times great uncle", are you related to the Earl?

Jeff

Upteeths time Cousin a couple of times removed is probably closer to the mark.

The Earl was the 5th Baron Cornwallis, before his being elevated to become an earl.

The 1st Baron was Frederick Cornwallis, his daughter, Lady Jane, Married William Duncombe, I am directly descended from them. Their 5th granddaughter, married my Great Grandad.

[GUT]

Strewth! An Aussie aristo!

Yeah but no title and as poor as a church mouse, I hope one day to find some long lost will that leaves me 100 pounds plus the interest thereon over the last 500 years.

[Mayerling]

Upteeths time Cousin a couple of times removed is probably closer to the mark.

The Earl was the 5th Baron Cornwallis, before his being elevated to become an earl.

The 1st Baron was Frederick Cornwallis, his daughter, Lady Jane, Married William Duncombe, I am directly descended from them. Their 5th granddaughter, married my Great Grandad.

Well, it's better than me. Aside from an actress on the Yiddish stage I know of nobody of any note on either side of my family.

[GUT]

Well, it's better than me. Aside from an actress on the Yiddish stage I know of nobody of any note on either side of my family.

I'm not sure about the better than anyone, but on one line we Go Back to at least Edward I and of Course all who come before him and on another to Robert The Bruce.

Fat lot of good any of it did me.

The Duncombe's sold their Manor to Earl Bathurst, the first of that family to arrive In Aus is said to have had a reference from the then Lord Bathurst the 3rd Earl from memory,[referenced in some colonial papers] the first of my name is believed, but only rumoured to have had a reference from the King, his father having been one of George III's favorite preachers.

[Robert]

I guess if you go back far enough, when populations were much smaller, most people were related to each other within a reasonably small area. In fact ultimately we're all related to sea sponges, aren't we?

[Mayerling]

I guess if you go back far enough, when populations were much smaller, most people were related to each other within a reasonably small area. In fact ultimately we're all related to sea sponges, aren't we?

And as such we should all lap up this genealogical information and share it.

[Mayerling]

I'm not sure about the better than anyone, but on one line we Go Back to at least Edward I and of Course all who come before him and on another to Robert The Bruce.

Fat lot of good any of it did me.

The Duncombe's sold their Manor to Earl Bathurst, the first of that family to arrive In Aus is said to have had a reference from the then Lord Bathurst the 3rd Earl from memory,[referenced in some colonial papers] the first of my name is believed, but only rumoured to have had a reference from the King, his father having been one of George III's favorite preachers.

G'day GUT,

If I am not mistaken the Bathurst family is the one that the diplomat Sir Benjamin Bathurst (who died/disappeared in 1809) came from.

Being one of King George's favorite preachers meant little. Rev. Dr. Dodd was one of his favorite preachers, and still was hanged for committing forgery in 1777.

Jeff

[Errata]

Well, it's better than me. Aside from an actress on the Yiddish stage I know of nobody of any note on either side of my family.

Ooh! Was it Clara Young?