AN OPEN LETTER FROM SECRETARY LEW: 
 
 Treasury Department Blocked Unblock Follow Following Apr 20, 2016 
 
 April 20, 2016 
 
 When I announced last June that a newly redesigned $10 note would feature a woman, I hoped to encourage a national conversation about women in our democracy. The response has been powerful. You and your fellow citizens from across the country have made your voices heard through town hall discussions and roundtable conversations, and with more than a million responses via mail and email, and through handwritten notes, tweets, and social media posts. Thank you for sharing this thoughtful and impassioned feedback. 
 
 Over the course of the last 10 months, you put forth hundreds of names of people who have played a pivotal role in our nation’s history. Many of you proposed that our new currency highlight democracy in action and reflect the diversity of our great nation. Some of you suggested we skip the redesign of the $10 note, which is the next in line for a security upgrade, and move immediately to redesigning the $20 note. And others proposed unconventional ideas, such as creating a $25 bill. 
 
 I have been inspired by this conversation and today I am excited to announce that for the first time in more than a century, the front of our currency will feature the portrait of a woman — Harriet Tubman on the $20 note. 
 
 High Resolution File Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection. 
 
 Since we began this process, we have heard overwhelming encouragement from Americans to look at notes beyond the $10. Based on this input, I have directed the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to accelerate plans for the redesign of the $20, $10, and $5 notes. We already have begun work on initial concepts for each note, which will continue this year. We anticipate that final concept designs for the new $20, $10, and $5 notes will all be unveiled in 2020 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. 
 
 The decision to put Harriet Tubman on the new $20 was driven by thousands of responses we received from Americans young and old. I have been particularly struck by the many comments and reactions from children for whom Harriet Tubman is not just a historical figure, but a role model for leadership and participation in our democracy. You shared your thoughts about her life and her works and how they changed our nation and represented our most cherished values. 
 
 Looking back on her life, Tubman once said, “I would fight for liberty so long as my strength lasted.” And she did fight, for the freedom of slaves and for the right of women to vote. Her incredible story of courage and commitment to equality embodies the ideals of democracy that our nation celebrates, and we will continue to value her legacy by honoring her on our currency. The reverse of the new $20 will continue to feature the White House as well as an image of President Andrew Jackson. 
 
 As I said when we launched this exciting project: after more than 100 years, we cannot delay, so the next bill to be redesigned must include women, who for too long have been absent from our currency. The new $10 will honor the story and the heroes of the women’s suffrage movement against the backdrop of the Treasury building. Treasury’s relationship with the suffrage movement dates back to the March of 1913, when advocates came together on the steps of the Treasury building to demonstrate for a woman’s right to vote, seven years prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment. The new $10 design will depict that historic march and honor Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul for their contributions to the suffrage movement. The front of the new $10 will continue to feature Alexander Hamilton, our nation’s first Treasury Secretary and the architect of our economic system. ||||| 
 
 An 1885 photo of Harriet Tubman by H. Seymour Squyer. (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution) 
 
 So now that it’s confirmed that Harriet Tubman will grace the front of the $20 bill, the next question is: Which Tubman? The antebellum abolitionist who supported John Brown and criticized Lincoln for his incrementalist approach to abolishing slavery, or the post-war figure of legend who was the subject of sentimental biographies? 
 
 Designs for the new bill haven’t been released, and it could be well into the next decade for the newly designed currency to begin circulating. But the Bureau of Engraving and Printing will have some interesting choices when it comes to representing Tubman. The iconography of Tubman imagery generally falls into two categories: The best-known, and perhaps best-loved, images depict her as a little old lady, after the war, primly dressed and often sporting a head wrap. But while Tubman may have looked grandmotherly, she also was a ferociously brave and determined woman, and was occasionally depicted as such. 
 
 Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has announced major changes to three U.S. currency notes in the coming years after long and controversial process. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post) 
 
 Typical of the first sort of image is a photograph made around 1885 by H. Seymour Squyer, showing Tubman full length in a dark dress wearing what was probably a colorful cloth on her head. But when the National Portrait Gallery featured an image of Tubman in a 2013 exhibition devoted to African Americans and the Civil War, they used another reproduction of a Tubman image, showing her dressed not for a Victorian photography studio, but in her outdoors garb, holding a gun. 
 
 [The National Portrait Gallery looks at African Americans and the Civil War] 
 
 An 1868 image of Tubman by John G. Darby. (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution) 
 
 Taken from a book about Tubman, this was a shockingly confrontational image. Although Tubman served in the U.S. Army during the war, and even led an armed raid that freed hundreds of slaves, the inclusion of a gun in a 19th-century image of an African American woman was startling. It also reminded readers that the acts for which Tubman is most celebrated—missions into Southern states to rescue slaves from bondage—were illegal, though obviously not immoral. After the infamous 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, even her own rescued relatives ran the risk of being returned to slavery. Tubman wasn’t working within the system; she saw clearly that the system couldn’t be reformed or repaired, only broken and replaced. 
 
 After the war, Tubman turned her formidable energies to the care of her family and the championing of women’s suffrage. As she aged, she seemed to soften in appearance. She was plagued by ill health and pain from a childhood injury (at the hands of a slave owner) though she lived well into her 90s. Photographs made late in her life show her diminished, and tired, as one might expect. But they also have the effect of softening the broader memory of who she was, and how she accomplished her heroic legacy. Popular books about her also lapsed into anodyne hagiography. 
 
 She was a fighter, and impatient for the freedom of her people and the suffrage of her sex; she repeatedly put her life on the line for what she believed in. And one hopes that’s how she appears on the $20 bill. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Harriet Tubman, the anti-slavery campaigner, is set to appear on the front of the $20 bill, becoming the first woman to be the face of a bill of US currency. 
 
 The US Treasury Department announced the news on Wednesday after a long, public and sometimes heated consultation period. The Treasury had reportedly considered letting Tubman bump founding father Alexander Hamilton, who has been on the $10 bill since 1928. Instead, she will take Andrew Jackson’s spot on the $20 bill. 
 
 “When I announced last June that a newly redesigned $10 note would feature a woman, I hoped to encourage a national conversation about women in our democracy. The response has been powerful,” US Treasury secretary Jack Lew said in a statement. “The decision to put Harriet Tubman on the new $20 was driven by thousands of responses we received from Americans young and old.” 
 
 Details of the redesign of the three bills – $5, $10 and $20 – were announced in a Medium post written by Lew. 
 
 — Treasury Department (@USTreasury) The front of the new $20 will bear the portrait of Harriet Tubman, whose life was dedicated to fighting for liberty. pic.twitter.com/8lAEkoD78p 
 
 The Federal Reserve chair, Janet Yellen, said: “Throughout American history, women have made important contributions to the free and democratic society we enjoy today. I welcome the decision by the Treasury Department to honor these achievements.” 
 
 
 
 Jackson is not disappearing from the $20 bill altogether. “The reverse of the new $20 will continue to feature the White House as well as an image of President Andrew Jackson,” Lew added. 
 
 
 
 Even before the US Treasury decided to put Tubman on the $20, she had won the people’s vote. A year ago, the not-for-profit group Women on 20s held a vote to choose a woman who could replace Jackson. Tubman won with 118,328 votes, beating out a Native American tribe leader, Wilma Mankiller, the former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the civil rights activist Rosa Parks. 
 
 Tubman, who was born into slavery, is best known for her role on the Underground Railroad. Making 19 trips over the course of 10 years, she helped free more than 300 slaves. She died in 1913, seven years before US women won the right to vote. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest American abolitionist leader Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery by marrying a free man and led many other slaves to safety. Photograph: MPI/Getty Images 
 
 The $5 and $10 bills will also undergo some changes. 
 
 “When we started this conversation not quite a year ago, it wasn’t clear to me that millions of Americans were going to weigh in with their ideas,” Lew told CNBC. “We’re not just talking about one bill. We’re talking about the $5, the $10 and the $20. We’re not just talking about one picture on one bill. We’re talking about using the front and the back of the bill to tell an exciting set of stories.” 
 
 While the $5 bill will be changed to depict civil rights era leaders, the back of the $10 bill will now bear a mural-style depiction of the women’s suffrage movement. Originally, Lew hoped to replace Hamilton with Susan B Anthony, according to a memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal. Anthony will now appear on the back of the bill instead. Anthony previously appeared on a $1 coin. 
 
 First lady Martha Washington previously appeared on a special $1 certificate. The other woman to appear on a bill was Pocahontas, who appeared on the back of a $20 bill. Tubman will be the first woman to appear as the main figure on the front of a bill. 
 
 The Treasury hopes to unveil the newly redesigned bill by 2020, a year that will mark the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote. 
 
 All about the Hamiltons 
 
 Lew changed his mind after the initial plan to take Hamilton off the $10 bill met with public resistance. Among those objecting the removal of the first US treasury secretary was Lin-Manuel Miranda, the author and star of the Broadway musical Hamilton. 
 
 After Lew attended the show last summer, Miranda tweeted that he had made his case. The two met again in March. “You’re going to be very happy,” Miranda said Lew told him at the time. 
 
 Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chair, also voiced his displeasure with the idea of replacing Hamilton. 
 
 “Hamilton’s demotion is intended to make room to honor a deserving woman on the face of our currency. That’s a fine idea, but it shouldn’t come at Hamilton’s expense,” he wrote last year. 
 
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 Unlike Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson was no hit on Broadway. 
 
 And in a couple of years he won't be worth $20, either. 
 
 The seventh president of the United States, who will be replaced by abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the twenty starting in 2020, was the subject of a rock musical called "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson." 
 
 Despite the positive notices for its portrayal of the populist president and some early Tony Awards buzz, "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" closed on Broadway in January 2011 after just 120 performances. 
 
 But whatever accolades the Jackson play got pale in comparison with the Pulitzer and Grammy-winning musical "Hamilton," that has rocketed the Founding Father back into the spotlight 212 years after he died in a duel — and continues to be the top ticket in town. 
 
 The front of the U.S. $20 bill, featuring a likeness of Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States. AP file 
 
 And Hamilton, who helped create the Treasury Department, will remain on the $10 bill, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced Wednesday. 
 
 "I think (Jackson) is in a particularly in an unfortunate situation, given the political incorrectness of many of his decisions," said Barbara Perry, Director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. "Many presidents fall into this category. I suspect he just doesn't have enough people to defend him at this point." 
 
 Among other things, the hero of the Battle of Orleans whose visage has graced the twenty since 1928, was a Southern slave owner who forced thousands of Cherokees off their ancestral lands and onto reservations in Oklahoma — a genocidal journey known as the "Trail of Tears." 
 
 "But he also should be remembered for the fact that he expanded our Democratic system and made a place for the common people in our political system," said Perry. "He launched the era of Jacksonian Democracy." 
 
 Hamilton's rep, however, is on the rise thanks to "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who personally went to bat for him with Lew after word leaked out that the Treasury was looking to replace him on the ten buck note with a historic woman. 
 
 That said, Hamilton will also have to get used to a new reality. The back of the new $10 bill will feature the faces of five suffragists who fought to get women the right to vote. 
 
 Jackson served two terms in the White House from 1829 to 1837 — and left behind a complicated life and legacy. For some, the fact that he is being replaced on the twenty by a former slave is perfect historical payback. 
 
 This photograph released by the Library of Congress and provided by Abrams Books shows Harriet Tubman in a photograph dating from 1860-75. Library of Congress via AP 
 
 "It is poetic, isn't it," said Nikki Stewart, who oversees the Harriet Tubman Gallery at the United South End Settlements social service in Boston. "I have nothing bad to say about Andrew Jackson. But I think Harriet leaves a legacy that is much more aligned where we are today." 
 
 Kari Winter, director of the Gender Institute at the University of Buffalo, had plenty of bad things to say about Jackson. 
 
 “This is fantastic and there could not be a better replacement for Jackson,who is a villain in American history," said Winter. "He was pro-slavery, slave holding, and contributed in a huge way to the genocide" of Native Americans. 
 
 Plus, said Winter, "he was horrible to women." 
 
 Down at the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge, Maryland, tour guide Bill Jarmon was delighted by the prospect of seeing his heroine on a $20 bill. 
 
 "We're all very proud," he said. "She was known as the 'Moses of her People' because she led so many slaves to freedom as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. I can't think of a more deserving person." ||||| WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department announced Wednesday that women will be incorporated into new designs for the $5, $10 and $20 bills. Here is a look at the new lineup. 
 
 Front of the $20 Bill: 
 
 Image Credit H. B. Lindslev, via Library of Congress 
 
 Harriet Tubman 
 
 Araminta Ross, known as “Minty,” was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland around 1822. When she was about 26, and married to John Tubman, she escaped to Philadelphia and took her mother’s given name, Harriet. She later returned to rescue family members, and was asked by slaves not related to her to help them escape as well. She took great risks traveling at night from the South to the free North via a network of secret routes and safe houses on the Underground Railroad. When the Civil War began, Tubman became a spy for the Union. 
 
 _____ 
 
 Back of the $10 Bill:
– After more than a century without any women on American paper money, there will soon be at least eight to choose from. The Treasury unveiled its plans for the new $20, $10, and $5 bills Wednesday, revealing that in addition to Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20, suffragette and antislavery figures Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul will be on the new $10, which will keep Alexander Hamilton on the front. The new $5 will feature Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt on the back, as well as Martin Luther King Jr. A roundup of coverage: Andrew Jackson will be moving to the back of the $20, but a lot of people want him gone altogether, reports NBC News, which notes that for some, replacing the slave-holding Jackson with a former slave is "perfect historical payback." The Wall Street Journal contrasts the life stories of Tubman and Jackson, who fought to kill off the predecessor to the Federal Reserve. The New York Times recaps the stories of all the new faces coming to US currency, including Sojourner Truth, who was best known for her 1851 "Ain't I a Woman" address. CNN reports that Ben Carson has called for keeping Jackson where he is on the $20 and putting Tubman on the $2 bill instead. He didn't say what he wants to do with Thomas Jefferson, who's currently on the little-used bill. At the Washington Post, Philip Kennicott argues that the $20 should feature not the "primly dressed" and "grandmotherly" woman most images of Tubman depict, but the "ferociously brave and determined woman" depicted holding a gun in what was a "shockingly confrontational image" at the time. Change for the $20 will take time: The redesigns won't be unveiled until 2020, the Guardian reports. In a Medium post, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew explains the changes and why Tubman was chosen for the $20.