There’s a movement brewing to have the face of a woman on the $20 bill. The new ‘female’ twenties would commemorate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in 2020. The link takes you to a site with a list of some possible candidates, with short bios on them. But here’s just the names (you can click the link or check google if you don’t know them):
Alice Paul
Betty Friedan
Shirley Chisholm
Sojourner Truth
Rachel Carson
Rosa Parks
Barbara Jordan
Margaret Sanger
Patsy Mink
Clara Barton
Harriet Tubman
Susan B. Anthony
Eleanor Roosevelt
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Talking it over during lunch yesterday, a few friends & I came up with some of our own candidates (and yes, some - but not all - were just goofy joke suggestions; I’ll let you decide):
Zora Neale Hurston
Bessie Smith
Billie Holiday
Janis Joplin
Emily Dickinson
Ayn Rand
Maya Angelou
Angela Davis
Bella Abzug
Susan Sontag
Christine Jorgenson
So, who would YOU want to see on the $20? The only stipulations are they have to be U.S. citizens, female (natch) and already deceased (so no votes for Hilary or Sarah Palin.) Discuss!
Following up in the “Sackie golden dollars”, I say stay Native American and put Hyapatia Lee. Then maybe the hard-core Cherokees will start accepting 20s?
Seriously, I paid attention in history class, and most of the people on that list I couldn’t tell you the first thing about without Googling them. (I’m excluding the joke list.) Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, and Eleanor Roosevelt are the only ones that I could recognize (and really, if we’re being honest, Susan B. Anthony is primarily famous for being on a coin that few people ever wanted or used). Margaret Sanger rings a bell somewhere, but again I’d have to look her up on Wikipedia or something.
I’d say Elanor Roosevelt is the one that’s closest to be on part with the presidents.
We need to make sure this $20 bill looks enough like some other denomination that people get confused and get it mixed up with say a five dollar bill or a hundred dollar bill so everybody hates the damn thing.
Just like we did the past two times we put women on our currency.
That’s just an excuse. The real problem was that the US public doesn’t want dollar coins. Notice how Americans didn’t suddenly embrace them when they put presidents on them.
Would I like to see? Well, obviously someone who’s pleasant to look at and somewhat popular. My vote would then be Cindy Crawford. Hey, if you’re going to have to depart with your $20 you might as well get some enjoyment out of owning first.
I’d say that if Hillary becomes president (and dies at some point) then that would be the obvious choice. I guess you don’t HAVE to be a president (it helps to be dead though) to be on a US bill of one denomination or another, but it seems you either need to be a FF or have worked for the treasury to get on the bill otherwise, right? I don’t see any female treasury secretaries listed here, but I guess we could pick other cabinet posts?
(I know we are thinking outside the box here with the OPs list, and that it’s not a hard and fast rule that you have to be president or TS or a FF to get on a bill, but seems like that’s the general standard)
Be fair, not too many people could tell you much about Andrew Jackson without googling. The stuff most people know are the things he’s infamous for - having shot & killed a man in a duel (over a comment about his supposedly loose-morals wife), cronyism, the Trail of Tears. Not the type of stuff we like to revere in our national heritage.
And the real point of the idea is to actually raise awareness of women in U.S.history, many of whom - as you yourself make apparent - get shafted in high school texts.