If you imagine just reaching into your wallet
or your pocket right now and pulling out a $20
bill. Yeah, the classic Andrew Jackson. Exactly.
You are holding a piece of fabric that is literally
engineered to outsmart computer software, survive
a trip through a washing machine, and ironically,
celebrate a man who absolutely despised the very
concept of paper money. It really is kind of
a master class in how something so ubiquitous
can be so completely misunderstood. I mean, we
interact with it almost every single day. We
just look at it and see purchasing power. Right.
It's just lunch money. Yeah. But you are actually
holding this highly contested miniature museum.
And that is exactly our mission for today's Deep
Dive. We're taking a single comprehensive look
at the United States $20 bill. We're going to
unpack the history the economics, and the human
contradictions woven directly into this everyday
object. So, okay, let's unpack this. Let's do
it. Before we even look at the faces printed
on the front, we really got to talk about what
this thing actually is. Because, well, the biggest
misconception about paper money is right there
in the name. It isn't paper. Right. What's fascinating
here is the materiality. It is essentially a
textile. The composition is actually 75 % cotton
and 25 % linen. Wow. Yeah, and it weighs exactly
1 gram, cut to precisely 156 by 66 .3 millimeters.
And when the Federal Reserve banks process these
and ship them out into the economy, they bundle
them together in very specific violet straps.
Wait, I'm stuck on something right out of the
gate here. If they needed to print money, why
use cotton linen? I mean, those are materials
you use to make a dress shirt or like a pair
of jeans, right? Not a financial document. It's
a great question Why not use a thick parchment
or something more traditional? Was it just you
know what they had lying around? No, not at all
It comes down to the brutal physical reality
of how money actually moves You have to think
about the velocity of currency in a modern economy
The 20 is basically the absolute workhorse of
the American financial system. It is constantly
moving from sweaty hands to cash registers. It's
being folded up into wallets, shoved into ATMs,
crumpled up, and, you know, occasionally washed
by accident. Left in the pocket of those jeans
we just talked about. Exactly. Which means, I
guess... standard wood pulp paper would just
disintegrate in a matter of weeks. Precisely.
Wood fibers break down incredibly quickly under
friction and moisture, but a cotton -linen blend
gives the bill structural integrity. The fibers
flex rather than snap when you fold them. Oh,
that makes sense. But even with that highly durable
fabric, the average lifespan of a $20 note in
circulation is still incredibly short. Really?
How short? It only lasts about 7 .8 years before
it is just so degraded by wear and tear that
it has to be pulled from circulation and destroyed.
7 .8 years, just for a single gram of cotton
to travel around the country. It really is less
like a piece of stationery and more like a very
thin, highly circulated pair of jeans. It's a
tough little survivor. But the physical durability
is just the prologue to the real drama here.
Oh, absolutely. Because the physical bill may
only live for about eight years, but the face
on the front of it has been locked in place since
1928. And it belongs to Andrew Jackson, the seventh
president of the United States. And here's where
it gets really interesting. has to be the most
contradictory design choice in the history of
American governance. It is a profound historical
irony. I mean, Jackson vehemently hated the very
concept of paper money. Okay, wait, break the
mechanics of that down for me. Why did he hate
it and what did he actually do about it during
his presidency? Well, Jackson believed that gold
and silver coin specie, as it was called, was
the only legitimate reliable form of money. He
deeply distrusted banks that issued paper notes.
Just on principle. in principle and from personal
experience. And he especially hated the central
bank of his era, which was the second bank of
the United States. So during his presidency,
the president of that national bank, a guy named
Nicholas Biddle, requested a renewal of the bank's
charter. And he did this in an election year,
effectively daring Jackson to intervene. Oh,
wow. And Jackson, uh. did not back down, I assume.
Not even a little bit. He took it as a personal
insult. Jackson responded by making it the administration's
primary goal to completely destroy the national
bank. Just scorch the earth. Literally. He pulled
federal funds out of it, essentially breaking
Biddle and dismantling the central banking system
altogether. But destroying the central bank didn't
just make a political point, right? I mean, it
had massive real -world economic mechanics behind
it. Huge consequences. Because when you remove
the central bank, you remove the oversight on
local and state banks. Oh, I see where this is
going. Yeah. Those smaller banks started printing
their own paper money recklessly and lending
it out. which fueled this massive real estate
speculation bubble in the mid 1830s. And bubbles
always pop. Always. When that bubble eventually
collapsed, it triggered the panic of 1837. So
his war on paper money. directly contributed
to a deep economic depression. It did. And you
know, the historical context of Jackson's era
makes this even darker. How so? Well, during
Jackson's time as a merchant and a land speculator
on the southwestern frontier, reliable money
was incredibly scarce. Barter was just the norm.
And the reality of that barter economy was...
frankly horrifying because reading the sources,
merchants and speculators in that era frequently
dealt in enslaved people because they lacked
a common coin. Yes, a horrific reality of that
time. Enslaved human beings were treated as embodied
wealth and used almost as a form of currency.
They were considered the primary security and
a major part of agricultural property in Jackson's
world. Exactly. So let me just get this straight.
You have a man whose economic environment was
defined by barter and a horrific commodification
of human beings. If he becomes president, which
is a literal war against the central bank and
triggers an economic depression because of his
deep -seated hatred of paper money. That is the
summary, yeah. I have to push you on this. Knowing
all of that, why would the Treasury decide to
make him the permanent face of the $20 bill in
1928? It's like putting a staunch anti -technology
crusader on the logo of a new smartphone. That
is the ultimate question. And his presence was
controversial from the moment the bills hit the
streets. But the official stance from the Treasury
has always been aggressively mundane. Mundane.
How? Well, when the press demanded answers, Treasury
officials flatly denied any political motivation.
In a New York Times article from June 1929, the
Treasury stoutly maintained that the men chosen
for these notes were placed there simply because
their faces were the most familiar to the majority
of people. I'm sorry, familiarity. That feels
like a massive cop out. Putting a staunch anti
-banking crusader on the logo of your currency
just because people recognize him? Many people
felt the exact same way. And it is highly conspicuous
that the 1928 redesign just happened to coincide
with the 100th anniversary of Jackson's election
as president. Ah, there it is. But if you look
at modern inquiries by the US Treasury into their
own archives, their records simply don't reveal
any specific rationale. There is no smoking gun
memo that says, let's put the bank hater on the
bank note to celebrate his centennial. It is
just this enduring physical piece of irony. But
knowing that Jackson only arrived on the bill
in 1928 makes me wonder what this fabric looked
like before him. Because prior to 1928, the currency
wasn't just a static portrait. It was basically
a completely different country. Oh, absolutely.
And if we connect this to the bigger picture,
early American currency wasn't just a medium
of exchange. It was a vital canvas for nation
building. Nation building through cash. Exactly.
The government was trying to project American
identity, shared history and modern values to
a rapidly growing, diverse population that was
just spreading out across this massive continent.
And the artwork they chose to project that identity
was incredibly varied. Like in 1861, you had
a demand note featuring the goddess of liberty
holding a sword and shield. Yeah. In 1865, a
national banknote featured an engraving of the
Battle of Lexington and, amazingly, Pocahontas'
marriage to John Rolfe. It's wild. You also see
a parade of actual historical figures before
the denominations became standardized. Alexander
Hamilton was on the $20 bill in 1869 and again
in 1880. James Garfield appeared in 1882. George
Washington was actually on a gold certificate
20 in 1905. Right. But my favorite design...
by far is from 1914. It's a Federal Reserve note
with Grover Cleveland on the front, but the back
is what's really amazing. There's no White House.
Instead, it features an engraving of a steam
locomotive, An automobile and a steamship. Which
tells you exactly what the government wanted
the public to value at that moment. Progress.
Yes. Those large -sized notes were communicating
the rapid technological progress and industrialization
of the country. They were literally putting the
engines of the economy on the currency to build
public confidence in the money itself. You weren't
just holding a dollar amount, you were basically
holding the future. Exactly. But then... 1928
rules around. The treasury shrinks the physical
dimensions of the bill to the small size we use
today. They slap Andrew Jackson on the front,
put the White House on the back, and the face
of the bill basically locks into place for the
next century. The face locked, yes. But the physical
object had to constantly evolve. The history
of the $20 bill after 1928 is really the history
of the United States reacting to external threats,
first from global wars and eventually from modern
technology. Oh, I want to look at a specific
wartime threat, because this is fascinating.
Jump to 1942. Okay. The U .S. is deeply entrenched
in World War II. And the Treasury issues a special
emergency series of the 20 for the Hawaiian Islands.
They call it the Hawaii Overprint. Yeah, the
visual changes on that one were stark. They printed
the word Hawaii in bold letters across both the
front and the back of the bill, and they used
brown ink for the serial numbers instead of the
standard green. Walk me through the mechanism
of that. Why go through the trouble of printing
a geographically specific bill in the middle
of a war? It was essentially an economic kill
switch. The U .S. military had a genuine, terrifying
concern that the Japanese military might successfully
invade Hawaii and seize the massive physical
cash reserves held on the islands. Right, which
would be disastrous. Huge problem. So by ensuring
that every single bill in Hawaii had the specific
brown serial number and overprint, the U .S.
government created a physical safeguard. If the
islands fell, Washington could instantly declare
any bill with the Hawaii overprint to be completely
worthless. Effectively rendering the seized currency
useless for funding the enemy's war effort. Or
precisely. That is brilliant. It's like physical
DRM for money. It really is. After the war, though,
the changes to the bill get a lot more subtle,
but they feel, I don't know, surprisingly poetic.
Like in 1948, the engravers updated the White
House on the back of the bill. They added the
Truman balcony, which had just been constructed.
Right. But they also did something else. They
actually drew the trees around the White House
to be noticeably larger. It's a beautiful touch.
It really demonstrates that money despite being
this cold instrument of commerce, is treated
by its creators as a living document. It reflects
the literal passage of time. And that concept
of a living document really crystallizes in 1963.
Two massive conceptual shifts happen to the 20
at the exact same time. The legal tender designation
changes completely. The currency is taken off
the silver backing. Yeah, you can no longer walk
into the treasury and redeem your paper 20 for
lawful physical silver. money, it becomes pure
fiat currency. And coincidentally, in that exact
same year, the in God We Trust is added above
the White House. Two fundamental changes to the
philosophical nature of American money just implemented
in a single redesign. Yeah. But as we move out
of the mid -century and into the modern era,
the changes stop being about aesthetics or balconies
or mottos. The bill enters a high stakes arms
race against counterfeiting. Oh, totally. The
Treasury essentially has to treat the $20 bill
like a software program. Every time consumer
technology gets better, the bill requires a new
security patch to fight off hackers or Well,
in this case, counterfeiters. OK, I need you
to break down exactly how these modern security
patches work, because we always hear terms like
color shifting ink or micro printing. But how
does ink actually shift color? It relies on optical
physics. The ink used for the number 20 in the
bottom right corner of the modern bill contains
microscopic metallic flakes. OK. When you hold
the bill flat, light hits those flakes one way
and looks copper. But when you tilt the bill,
the angle of the light changes, and the reflected
color physically shifts from copper to green.
Wow. Yeah. And you cannot replicate that effect
with a standard color inkjet printer. They also
embedded a vertical plastic strip inside the
fabric. If you shine an ultraviolet blacklight
on it, that strip glows bright green and reveals
the text USA 20. And then there is the feature
added in 2003, which just sounds like something
out of a spy novel, the Uranian constellation.
If you look closely at the back of a modern 20,
there are dozens of tiny, faint yellow number
20s scattered around the background. It just
looks like a stylistic shading choice. But it
is actually a digital trap. Modern imaging software
inside your home scanner or a commercial photocopier
is specifically programmed to recognize the spatial
relationship, the exact geometric distances between
those tiny yellow dots. Wait, so the machine
is actively looking for it? Exactly. The moment
the software detects that constellation pattern,
it instantly shuts down the scan. The machine
will either freeze or just print a completely
blank page. The software simply refuses to process
the image. That is wild. So we have this highly
engineered piece of fabric fighting a silent
war against consumer electronics. But despite
all of these invisible technological updates,
the most heavily debated feature of the $20 bill
today isn't the glowing strip or the optical
ink. It's the one thing we actually look at,
the portrait. Which brings us to the modern redesigned
tug -of -war. And this raises an important question.
How does a modern democracy decide whose face
belongs on its currency, especially when the
physical money itself requires a decade of complex
engineering to produce? It is a massive collision
of public sentiment, political theater, and slow
-moving, cold bureaucracy. Let's trace exactly
how this played out, because it's a roller coaster.
It really is. It begins with a grassroots campaign
called Women on Twenties. The explicit goal was
to have a female portrait on the $20 bill by
the year 2020 to mark the centennial of the 19th
Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
Right. And they ran a massive public poll surveying
over 600 ,000 people. The candidates were monumental
figures in American history, including Eleanor
Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Wilma Mankiller, who
was the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation.
But the winner, pulling in over 118 ,000 votes,
was Harriet Tubman. Yeah, the public spoke. But
then pop culture threw a massive wrench into
the machinery, because the Treasury Secretary
at the time, Jack Lew, had actually been planning
to put a woman's portrait on the $10 note, replacing
Alexander Hamilton. Right. But the timing collided
perfectly with Broadway. Yeah. 2015 was the exact
moment the musical Hamilton became a cultural
juggernaut. It was everywhere. Alexander Hamilton's
popularity surged and fans of the musical actively
campaigned to keep him on the currency. Yeah.
So Secretary Lew pivoted. He announced that Hamilton
would stay on the 10, and Harriet Tubman would
instead replace Andrew Jackson on the front of
the 20. Think about that. A Broadway play literally
altered the physical currency of the United States.
Unbelievable. But there was a massive catch hiding
in the bureaucracy. The $20 bill wasn't scheduled
to be replaced until after the $10 bill. You
can't just, you know, swap a JPEG on a printing
press. A redesign means re -engineering that
entire suite of security features we just talked
about. Precisely. And this is where the politicians
essentially wrote checks that the engineering
department just couldn't cash. Oh, that's a good
way to put it. The Obama administration announced
the Tubman 20 with an implied target date of
2020. But when the political climate shifted,
that timeline became a massive point of contention.
Right. And let's look at the sequence of events,
strictly and partially here, just following the
timeline. During his campaign, Donald Trump called
Harriet Tubman fantastic, but he opposed replacing
Jackson on the 20, calling it pure political
correctness. Then, his Treasury Secretary, Stephen
Mnuchin, officially announced that the new design
wouldn't be unveiled until 2026. Mnuchin stated
that the 20 couldn't jump ahead of the 10 or
the 50 in the redesign queue because of counterfeiting
security concerns. Which naturally caused an
immediate uproar. Democratic members of Congress
pushed back hard, assuming the delay was a purely
partisan move to block the Tubman design. They
demanded a formal investigation. But the resulting
2020 Inspector General report revealed the mundane,
grueling reality of anti -counterfeiting bureaucracy.
Yeah, the report basically concluded that the
timeline hadn't actually changed at all. The
engineering team always expected the 20 to be
production ready around 2030. So the earlier
2020 target date was? It was essentially a PR
announcement made outside the normal note development
governance structure. It never had the recommendation
of the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence Steering
Committee. Wow. So the political promise completely
outpaced the actual security engineering. Exactly.
And we saw this reality check happen again. When
the Biden administration took office in 2021,
the White House initially claimed they would
accelerate the Tubman redesign. But by 2022,
an internal message from Treasury Secretary Janet
Yellen reaffirmed the 2030 debut, exactly the
timeline planned by the previous administration's
security queue. Both sides of the political aisle
ultimately crashed into the hard technical realities
of printing secure money. It really completely
reframes how I look at the money in my wallet.
I mean, the next time you hand over a $20 bill
to pay for a meal, just think about what you
were actually holding. You weren't just holding
purchasing power. No, not at all. You are trading
exactly one gram of woven cotton and linen. You
are carrying the deeply ironic face of a president
who destroyed a central bank and triggered a
depression because he hated paper money. Right.
You are holding a document engineered with optical
physics and secret constellations to outsmart
computer software. And you are holding an object
standing at the dead center of a modern cultural
debate. And, you know, that leaves me with one
final really fascinating thing to consider, something
that goes beyond the timeline of the redesign
itself. What's that? Well, as we tap our phones
to pay for groceries, as we use credit cards
and digital wallets more and more every single
day, we are rapidly moving toward a complete
cashless society. That's a great point. The velocity
of physical money is dropping. So will these
intense multi -year debates about whose portrait
deserves to be on our paper money eventually
become a relic of the past? Will this incredible
complex 75 % cotton object with all its rich
ironies and controversies simply become a museum
piece before the 2030 Harriet Tubman design even
has a chance to wear out? Wow. Will the new 20
outlive the era of paper money itself? That is
a fantastic question to ponder next time you
reach into your pocket. Thank you for joining
us on this deep dive into the $20 bill. Stay
insanely curious, keep looking closely at the
everyday objects around you, and we will catch
you on the next one.