George Washington on Coins and Currency

George Washington has been the most popular and widely used subject on coins, medals, tokens, paper money, and postage stamps in America. Attempts on the part of America's lawmakers to eliminate one-dollar bills from circulation, replacing them with coins, have been unsuccessful. The reasons for Americans' reluctance to part with their beloved "Georges" are beyond rational economic considerations, though, tapping into deep-felt emotions. To discard one-dollar bills and to replace them with another form of currency means discarding the metaphorical Father of His Country. Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury, said that monetary tokens were "vehicles of useful impressions." This numismatic history of George Washington traces examines why his image remains so persistent on American currency. Since the images used were mostly copied from late eighteenth-century paintings and prints, Washington's numismatic legacy is complemented with a close look at the pictorial tradition in which these images were rooted.