On the Money: Museum Features Currency as Intricate Art
The vignette on this 1896 silver dollar certificate represents “History Instructing Youth.” “History” is pointing to a book open to the Preamble of the Constitution.
If money could really talk, what tales could be told by the 250 notes on display at the new exhibit, “America in Circulation: A History of US Currency” at the Museum of American Finance. From the first notes printed by the Continental Congress, which listed the colonies on its face and boldly proclaimed “We are one,” to the 1861 $10 notes produced by the Confederacy with an allegorical female figure representing hope, the images etched on these papers reveal much about our country.
The colony of Maryland took an initial small step toward monetary independence from Britain in 1767 by printing the first bill with the word “dollar.” The simply-designed $6 bill had the Maryland arms on one side and the words “Tis Death to Counterfeit” on the other. As war approached, it became urgent for the colonies to raise money. Even the smallest amounts were helpful. In 1776, The Continental Congress issued a million dollars worth of notes in denominations of less than one dollar. Buying these notes may have turned out to be more patriotic than the purchasers imagined. When redeemed in 1790, they were only worth a penny on the dollar, making a third-of-a-dollar note issued in New York (printed by Samuel Loudon, who was also a publisher and bookseller at 5 Water St.) worth only one-third of a penny.
The glorious era of paper money began in the 1800s. Any bank could issue a note, and so they did. By the 1830s, there were thousands of banks, many of them short-lived, that printed notes bearing intricate artwork that required skilled etchers to reproduce. The face of a $2 bill from Stonington Bank in Connecticut showed a dramatic scene: a whaling boat from which sailors were being tossed into the ocean by an angry whale. In 1826 the Hoboken Banking and Grazing Company issued a $1 note with a vignette of Benjamin Franklin at his desk, created by the noted Hudson River School artist Asher Durand. (Lest people were unfamiliar with Hoboken, “Opposite the City of New York” appeared in large letters next to the bank’s name.) Some bills favored scenes of prosperity or chugging trains or determined-looking settlers answering the call of Manifest Destiny.
On display, too, is perhaps the most beautifully designed American money—two silver certificates issued by the U.S. Treasury in 1896. In one, a winged woman holding a lightbulb represents electricity as the dominant force in the world; the other is an allegory of “Science Presenting Steam and Electricity to Commerce and Manufacturing.” Anthony Comstock, founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, tried to pressure the U.S. Treasury to withdraw the former because it showed the woman’s bare breasts.
Indeed, it was the norm that most bills featuring women posed them in either peekaboo toga-like dresses or in highly romanticized settings. As the exhibit’s curators point out, the $1 silver certificate issued in 1886 with a portrait of Martha Washington is notable because it shows “the only ‘real,’ i.e., non- allegorical, female featured on federal paper currency.”
“America in Circulation,” which is largely the collection of investment firm owner Mark R. Shenkman, also offers a bonus that would make a great addition to other shows of art—computer terminals that allow one to get close to the art. Visitors can zoom in and see the brilliance of the engraver’s work, which is also flashed above on a large overhead screen. The show can also be seen on the museum’s website at moaf.org.
The Museum of American Finance is housed in the magnificent lobby of 48 Wall Street, a 1929 landmark that is itself worth a look. The museum is open Tues.–Sat., 10 a.m.–4 p.m., and will be closed on May 6 and 7. Admission is $8, $5 for students and seniors.