Sojourner Truth to Appear on the $10 Bill
Women on 20s prevails!
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced this week that not only will Harriet Tubman be replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, but Sojourner Truth will be joining a slate of suffrage leaders on the back of the $10 bill.
From The New York Times:
While Hamilton would remain on the $10, and Abraham Lincoln on the $5, images of women would be added to the back of both — in keeping with Mr. Lew’s intent “to bring to life” the national monuments depicted there.
The picture of the Treasury building on the back of the $10 bill would be replaced with a depiction of a 1913 march in support of women’s right to vote that ended at the building, along with portraits of five suffrage leaders: Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul and Susan B. Anthony, who in more recent years was on an unpopular $1 coin until minting ceased.
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The final redesigns will be unveiled in 2020, the centennial of the 19th Amendment establishing women’s suffrage, and will not go into wide circulation until later in the decade, starting with the new $10 note.
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In advance of Mr. Lew’s decision, the emotion that the Treasury initiative had prompted was reflected in a letter to the Treasury secretary on Tuesday evening. More than three dozen women including actors, feminists, corporate executives and journalists objected to preliminary news reports that he was planning to renege on putting a woman on the $10 face, calling it, if true, “a major blow to the advancement of women.”
They admonished the Treasury secretary, saying: “ Could there be a better metaphor for second-class status that continues to limit our girls?”
The signers included the actresses Ellen DeGeneres, Geena Davis and Jane Lynch; the former soccer star Abby Wambach; former Representative Gabrielle Giffords; the news media figures Katie Couric and Arianna Huffington; the feminist leader Gloria Steinem; and the photographer Annie Leibovitz.
We are thrilled that so many remarkable women will be featured on our currency, and we applaud the decision of the Treasury to include Sojourner Truth among them.
