That’s progress, said the Women on 20s campaign, an online activist group that sprung up last year. But it’s “not perfect.”
“We would love to see a woman not have to share her glory, and her opportunity to be recognized and honored,” said Susan Ades Stone, the executive director of the campaign. “And Alexander Hamilton is not someone that people have a problem with.”
President Andrew Jackson, whose portrait is on the $20 bill, is another matter. While Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury, built the national banking system, Jackson tried to tear it down. And his record on slavery and treatment of American Indians offends some modern sensibilities.
And then there’s this: the $20 bill is more visible than the $10 bill. As of 2014, there were more than 8.1 billion $20 bills in circulation, compared to 1.9 $10 bills. Of the denominations under $500, only the $50 and the $2 bills circulate less.
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