As of December 2018, the average life of a $20 note incirculation is 7.8 years before it is replaced due to wear.[4] Twenty-dollar notes are delivered byFederal Reserve Banks in violet straps.
1861 (1861):Ademand note withthe Goddess of Liberty holding a sword and shield on the front, and an abstract design on the back. The back is printed green.
1862 (1862):A note that is very similar, the first $20United States note. The back has several small variations.
1863 (1863):Agold certificate $20 note with an Eagle vignette on the face. The reverse has a $20 gold coin and various abstract elements. The back is orange.
1865 (1865):A national bank note with "The Battle of Lexington" andPocahontas's marriage toJohn Rolfe in black, and a green border.
1869 (1869):A new United States note design, withAlexander Hamilton on the left side of the front andVictory holding ashield andsword. The back design is green.
1875 (1875):As above, except with a different reverse.
Series 1929 $20 National Currency note issued by the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank.
Series 1995 $20 Federal Reserve Note; basically unchanged sinceSeries 1950
Series 1996 $20 Federal Reserve Note.
The security strip in a twenty-dollar note glows green under ablacklight.
Andrew Jackson has appeared on the $20 note since the series of 1928. The placement of Jackson on the $20 note is considered ironic; as president, he vehemently opposed both the National Bank and use ofpaper money. After the president of the Second Bank of the United States,Nicholas Biddle, defied Jackson and requested the renewal of the charter of the Second Bank in an election year, Jackson responded by making it a goal of his administration to destroy the National Bank.[5][6] Jackson prevailed over Biddle, and the absence of the Second Bank contributed to areal estate bubble in the mid-1830s. The bubble collapsed in thePanic of 1837, leading to a deepdepression.[7]
Given Jackson's opposition to the concept of a National Bank, his presence on the $20 note was controversial from the start. When pressed to reveal why the various images were chosen for the new notes, Treasury officials denied there was any political motivation. Instead, they insisted that the images were based only on their relative familiarity to the public. An article in the June 30, 1929 issue of theNew York Times, stated "TheTreasury Department maintains stoutly that the men chosen for small notes, which are naturally the ones in most demand, were so placed because their faces were most familiar to the majority of people."[8] It is also true that 1928 coincides with the 100th anniversary ofJackson's election as president, but no evidence has surfaced that would suggest that this was a factor in the decision. According to more recent inquiries of the U.S. Treasury: "Treasury Department records do not reveal the reason that portraits of these particular statesmen were chosen in preference to those of other persons of equal importance and prominence."[9]
1918 (1918):A federal reserve banknote with Grover Cleveland on the front, and a back design similar to the 1914 Federal Reserve Note.
1928: Switched to asmall-sized note with a portrait of Andrew Jackson on the face and the south view of the White House on the reverse. The banknote is redeemable ingold orsilver (at the bearer's discretion) at anyFederal Reserve Bank.
1933: With the U.S. having abandoned thegold standard, the note is no longer redeemable in gold, but rather in "lawful money", meaning silver.
1942:A special emergency series, with brown serial numbers and "HAWAII" overprinted on both the front and the back, is issued. These notes were designed to circulate on theHawaiian islands and could be rendered worthless in the event of aJapanese invasion.
1948: The White House rendering on the reverse of the note was updated to reflectrenovations to the building itself, including the addition of theTruman Balcony, as well as the passage of time. Most notably, the trees are larger. The change occurred during production of Series 1934C.
1950: Design elements such as the treasury and Federal Reserve seals are reduced in size and repositioned subtly, presumably for aesthetic reasons.
1963: "Will Pay To The Bearer On Demand" is removed from the front of the note and the legal tender designation is shortened to "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" (eliminating "and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury, or at any Federal Reserve Bank.") Also,IN GOD WE TRUST is added above the White House on the reverse. These two acts (one taking U.S. currency off the silver backing, and the other authorizing the national motto) are coincidental, even if their combined result is implemented in one redesign. Also, several design elements are rearranged, less perceptibly than the changes in 1950, mostly to make room for the slightly rearranged obligations.
1969: The new treasury seal appears on all denominations, including the $20 note.
1977 (1977):A new type of serial-number press results in a slightly different font. The old presses are gradually retired, and old-style serial numbers appear as late as 1981 for this denomination.
1992 (1992):For Series 1990, new anti-counterfeiting features are added:microprinting around the portrait, and a plastic strip embedded in the paper. Production of Series 1990 notes began in April 1992.[10]
1994: The first $20 notes produced at theWestern Currency Facility inFort Worth, Texas are printed in January 1994, late during production of Series 1990.
1998: The Series 1996 $20 note was completely redesigned for the first time since 1929 to further deter counterfeiting; A larger, off-center portrait of Jackson was used and the view of the White House on the reverse of the note was changed from the south portico to the north. Several new anti-counterfeiting features were added, including color-shifting ink, microprinting, and a watermark. The plastic strip now reads "USA 20" and glows green under ablack light.[11] Production of Series 1996 $20 notes began in June 1998.[12]
2003:[13] The redesigned Series 2004 20 dollar note is released with light background shading in green and yellow, and nooval around Andrew Jackson's portrait (background images of eagles, etc. were also added to the obverse); the reverse features the same view of the White House, but without an oval around it. Ninety faint "20"s are scattered on the back in yellow à la the "EURion constellation" to preventphotocopying. Production of Series 2004 $20 notes began in April 2003.[14]
In a campaign called "Women on 20s", selected voters were asked to choose three of 15 female candidates to have a portrait on the$20 note. The goal was to have a woman on the$20 note by 2020, the centennial of the19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote.[15] Among the candidates on the petition wereHarriet Tubman,Eleanor Roosevelt,Rosa Parks, andWilma Mankiller, the first female chief of theCherokee Nation.[16]
On May 12, 2015, Tubman was announced as the winning candidate of that "grassroots" poll with more than 600,000 people surveyed and more than 118,000 choosing Tubman, followed by Roosevelt, Parks and Mankiller.[17]
On June 17, 2015, Treasury SecretaryJack Lew announced that a woman's portrait would be featured on aredesigned$10 note by 2020, replacingAlexander Hamilton.[18] However, that decision was reversed, at least in part due to Hamilton's surging popularity following the hitBroadway musicalHamilton.[19]
On April 20, 2016, Lew officially announced that Alexander Hamilton would remain on the$10 note, while Andrew Jackson would be replaced by Tubman on the front of the$20 note, with Jackson appearing on the reverse.[20][21] Lew simultaneously announced that the five- and ten-dollar notes would also be redesigned in the coming years and put into production in the next decade.[20][21] However, as the $20 note was not scheduled to be replaced until after the $10 note, this moved the production date of the referenced note containing Tubman back, frustrating supporters of placing a woman on a note. Secretary Lew reiterated that the $10 note would be redesigned first.[22]
While campaigning for president,Donald Trump responded to the announcement that Tubman would replace Jackson on the twenty-dollar note. The day following the announcement Trump called Tubman "fantastic", but stated that he would oppose replacing Jackson with Tubman, calling the replacement "purepolitical correctness", and suggested that Tubman could perhaps be put on another denomination instead.[23]
On August 31, 2017, Treasury SecretarySteven Mnuchin said that he would not commit to putting Tubman on the twenty-dollar note, explaining "People have been on the notes for a long period of time. This is something we'll consider; right now we have a lot more important issues to focus on."[24] According to aBureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) spokesperson, the next redesigned note will be the ten-dollar note, not set to be released into circulation until at least 2026.[25][26]
In May 2019, Mnuchin stated that no new imagery for the new 2028 $20 note would be unveiled until 2026. He also reaffirmed that the new $20 note would not be moved up ahead of the new $10 or $50 notes due to counterfeiting security concerns regarding the $10 and $50 notes. Mnuchin would not say whether he supported keeping Tubman on the redesigned $20 note. He said that the decision will be left to whoever is Treasury secretary in 2026.[27] Democratic members of the House of Representatives asked Mnuchin to provide more specific reasons for the design release delay. The production date of the new $20 note, 2028, was unchanged from the timeline announced in 2016 by the Obama administration.[28] The Director of the BEP, Len Olijar, released a statement saying that the "BEP was never going to unveil a note design in 2020" and that the illustration used by the New York Times was not a new $20 note.[29] Later in June, the Treasury Department's acting inspector general, Rich Delmar, sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stating that his office would investigate the issue.[30]
In June 2020, theOffice of Inspector General released a report detailing the results of its investigation, which concluded that the $20 note's position in the redesign sequence had not changed, that the earlier announcement of the 2020 date by the Obama administration "was made outside of the note development governance structure and without the recommendation of the ACD" (referring to the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence Steering Committee), that the $10 note redesign set to precede the $20 redesign had already been delayed to no earlier than 2026 by 2016, and that the $20 note had not yet entered the banknote design process and was not expected to be production-ready until 2030.[31]
In January 2021, White House Press SecretaryJen Psaki claimed PresidentJoe Biden would accelerate the Tubman redesign.[32] However, a 2022 internal department message from the Treasury Secretary,Janet Yellen, reaffirmed the 2030 debut originally planned by the Trump Administration.[33][34]
^Roberts, Alasdair (2012).America's first Great Depression : economic crisis and political disorder after the Panic of 1837. Ithaca, NY.ISBN978-0-8014-6467-6.OCLC1162545719.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^"Anti-Counterfeiting".Bureau of Engraving and Printing. United States Treasury. 2007. Archived fromthe original on December 17, 2014. RetrievedMay 13, 2015.
