WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew will announce plans Wednesday to put abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, replacing President Andrew Jackson and sparing the surprisingly popular Alexander Hamilton, a Treasury official told USA TODAY.
The Treasury source, speaking on condition of anonymity to allow Lew to make the announcement, confirmed that Hamilton would remain on the $10 bill after an unexpected public show of support fueled, in part, by the popularity of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play based on Hamilton's life by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The long-awaited currency redesign could have a cascading effect on bills of all denominations over the next half-century. Lew has said his previous plan to put a woman on a bill would be just the first of many design changes to incorporate the theme of democracy in paper currency.
When completed, it will be the biggest overhaul of the look of U.S. currency since the 1920s.
Women on 20s, a group that had lobbied for a woman on the $20 bill, said it would claim victory only if the $20 bill was redesigned at the same time as the $10 bill, which is next in line for a facelift. Otherwise, said group founder Barbara Ortiz Howard, "we see today’s announcement as only a vague commitment and a continuation of the now familiar message that women have to settle for less and wait for their fair share."
The Treasury Department has said it needs to redesign the $10 bill next because it's most prone to counterfeiting — even though there are four times more $20 bills in circulation, according to Federal Reserve data. And the lead time for designing and printing currency is so long it could take a decade for anyone to see any changes.
While Congress maintains authority over coins under the Constitution, the Treasury secretary has the legal authority to design paper currency. And according to a memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Lew considered putting women's voting rights pioneer Susan B. Anthony on the $10 bill early last year.
He then changed course and decided to ask for public comment about which woman should be on the bill, and the resulting feedback from social media campaigns forced him to delay a decision until this year.
President Obama launched the effort in 2014, when he said he had gotten a letter from a girl from Massachusetts saying women should appear on currency. Obama called it "a pretty good idea."
Last week, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the decision about which woman would be up to Lew.
"Lew has demonstrated a seriousness of purpose in taking a look at what the next generation of U.S. currency would look like. Obviously, there are updates that are made to our currency based on security requirements. And the question that he has considered is when those security updates are required, should we make some changes to our currency to make sure that it better reflects the country, and certainly the role that women have played in contributing to the development of our country," Earnest said.
Former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president, praised the pick once the news broke. "I can't think of a better choice than Harriet Tubman," she said on Twitter.
