>The new FDR administration embarked on several currency reforms including removing the dollar from the gold standard and switching to purely fiat currency. In addition the administration retired paper notes greater than $100 in denomination. This included the $500 bill, which depicted President William McKinley, the $1,000 bill, depicting President Grover Cleveland, the $5,000 bill, depicting President James Madison, and the $10,000 bill, depicting President Woodrow Wilson. None of these large denomination notes were significantly missed since they were seldom seen in general circulation and were most often limited to inter-bank transfers. Since 1934 the $100 bill has been the largest US unit of currency in circulation and accounts for 70% of all paper notes the government prints annually.[9]
that was the $100k bill with Wilson on it
>>17281999Unrelated but we should get rid of the penny and make the 1$, 2$ and 5$ bills out of plastic.
>>17282574>out of plastic god no, that shit would be annoying to carry around
That was only a couple years after they adopted the modern small-sized paper notes which appeared in the 1920s and replaced the large, bulky ones that had been used since the introduction of paper currency during the Civil War. Until that time most people carried coins around rather than those clumsy pre-1927 paper notes.
Wilson was on the $10,000, the biggest was the $100,000 bill that had Salmon Chase on it.
I suppose getting rid of those big bills was seen as a way to cut down on bank robberies which were extremely common in that era and banks didn't stand to lose as much cash in a robbery if the largest denomination was $100.
The other major currency reform had been back in 1857 when foreign currencies were made no longer legal tender in the US and had to exchanged for the appropriate amount of US currency--yes, in the early decades of the nation European currencies like the British pound and Spanish real were perfectly valid spending money and often used as the US Mint lacked the ability to make enough coins to handle commerce needs (there were no paper notes until the Civil War). By the 1850s the Mint was able to make enough coins that this ceased to be an issue. Further, quarters, half dollars, and silver dollars in the pre-1857 period were generally only used for bank transfers and not in general circulation that much so most people only had the smaller denomination coins.
