US Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew today announced plans for the new $20 that will feature the portrait of Harriet Tubman, whose life was dedicated to fighting for liberty. The reverse of the new $20 will display The White House and an image of President Andrew Jackson.
Secretary Lew also announced plans for the reverse of the new $10 to feature an image of the historic march for suffrage that ended on the steps of the Treasury Department and honor the leaders of the suffrage movement—Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul. The front of the new $10 note will maintain the portrait of Alexander Hamilton.
Finally, he announced plans for the reverse of the new $5 to honor events at the Lincoln Memorial that helped to shape our history and our democracy and prominent individuals involved in those events, including Marian Anderson, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr.
In his letter, Secretary Lew noted that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing will work closely with the Federal Reserve to accelerate work on the new $20 and $5 notes, with the goal that all three new notes go into circulation as quickly as possible, consistent with security requirements.
A woman has not appeared on US money in more than a century, and Tubman is the first African American to be featured on a paper note.
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery. After she escaped, she became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape to freedom.
During the Civil War, she was active in the Union cause, serving as a nurse, a cook, and a scout, gathering intelligence.
After the war, she supported the cause of women’s suffrage and was active in suffragist organizations. She died in 1913 and was buried with military honors.
