Representative money is a type of money that can be exchanged for a fixed amount of a good such as gold or silver. In 1896 The United States government issued new silver certificates that had artwork on the back. The idea was to spread art to the rural areas of the country.
This $1 note is entitled “History Instructing Youth” was designed by Will H. Low. The border shows 23 wreaths that show the names of noteworthy Americans including Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, poet Henry Longfellow, and author Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Edwin H. Blashfield designed the $2 note entitled, “Science Presenting Steam And Electricity To Commerce And Manufacture.” This shows the important roles of the inventions of electricity and steam-power had on trade.
The $5 silver certificate was designed by Walter Shirlaw and is entitled, “Electricity Presenting Light To The World.” The founder of the Watch and Ward Society, a group involved in the censorship of books and the arts, found the artwork on this note to be appalling and loathsome. The society campaigned for the recall of these bills because of the feminine nudity on the currency. The 1897 issue of the note showed the winged female with more clothing.
Walter Shirlaw also designed the art for the $10 note entitled, “Agriculture and Forestry.” However this note was never released.
The beautiful and intricate artwork of these certificates was popular with the public but not with bank tellers. The placement of the numbers made it hard to count the bills quickly and the large amounts of ink work would smudge and look suspicious.
5 comments:
These bills are certainly very different from the ones we have now. I love how artistic they were. Now they're just a picture of a past President and some have color now. My dad has an old $2 bill and I think it's pretty cool he kept it this long. It doesn't look as artistic as these you put on, but they aren't like the ones we have now.
I never knew the money was so good looking then. Everything just has a bunch of boring presidents on it. I do have some two dollar bills though, and I do believe that they have the signing of the declaration of independence on the back. I'm not going to get them out to check, but it's a cool print. We just have faces and buildings, not cool. But I don't care if they put Barney on the money, I just want the value of it to go back up.
The evolution of money is very interesting. The bills in the picture look a lot different from the ones we use today. They were very much full of detail. I still have a few two dollar bills laying around somewhere. I think these bills look much better than the ones we use today.
I'm glad that at least back then they cherished art enough to put it on the money of the time. I only wish today's society would be as creative.
As a collector of old U.S. currency I love the artwork that is on paper money. Most of the new designs on U.S. paper currency are boring. Why do they call it paper currency anyway? It's not paper at all, money is made up of a combination of cotton and linen with special fibers to reduce the chance of counterfeiting.
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