Description
Book Synopsis George Washington is the most popular subject on coins, medals, tokens, paper money and postage stamps in America. Attempts to eliminate one-dollar bills from circulation, replacing them with coins, have been unsuccessful. Americans'' reluctance to part with their Georges are beyond rational considerations but tap into deep-felt emotions. To discard one-dollar bills means discarding the metaphorical Father of His Country.
Alexander Hamilton, the nation''s first Secretary of the Treasury, said that monetary tokens were vehicles of useful impressions. This numismatic history of George Washington traces the persistence of his image on American currency. These images are mostly from the late 18th-century. This book also offers a close look at the pictorial tradition in which these images are rooted.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments ix
- Prologue: "Americans for George" 1
- Part I. Vehicles of Useful Impressions 13
- 1. The Father of His Country and America's Money 15
- 2. The Mark of the Prince 30
- 3. Constitutional Prohibitions and the Era of Private Banking 41
- Part II. The Antebellum Period and the Civil War 57
- 4. The Cult of Antiquity 59
- 5. George Washington, Gallant Revolutionary 68
- 6. Ornamenting the Façade of Hell 86
- Part III. From the End of the Civil War through the 1920s 93
- 7. The Only True American Contribution to the Arts 95
- 8. National Myths 110
- 9. Value and the Paternal Image 120
- Part IV. A More Permanent Familiarity 131
- 10. Patriotic Extravaganzas 132
- 11. Dollar Bill Y'all 140
- 12. Money and Faith 151
- Epilogue: "Where's George?" 166
- Chapter Notes 181
- Bibliography 223
- Index 229
