NEWCASTLE, Maine — There are no Mainers whose images appear on modern U.S. currency or coins, but two people with significant ties to the state each stand a chance of getting the honor, thanks to a growing movement to change the $20 bill.
The movement, which has expanded to receive nationwide attention, gained traction last summer when President Barack Obama, speaking in Kansas City, said he thought it was a “pretty good idea” to put images of women on American money. Martha Washington, who appeared on silver certificate versions of $1 bills printed in the late 19th century, is the only real-life, historical woman to be featured on U.S. paper currency.
In the wake of Obama’s comment, a group called WomenOn20s formed and came up with a list of 15 “inspiring American women heroes” as candidates for replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. To make it happen, Obama just has to ask the Treasury secretary to do it, according to the group.
“We believe this simple, symbolic and long-overdue change could be an important stepping stone for other initiatives promoting gender equality,” the group says on its website. “Our money does say something about us, about what we value.”
Among the candidates listed on the group’s website — where people can vote for three candidates to move on to the final round of the group’s poll — are Frances Perkins and Rachel Carson. Neither was born in Maine, but both spent significant time in the state, either as residents or on extended visits with relatives who lived here.
Perkins, who died in 1965 at the age of 85, was Secretary of Labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and is credited with helping create Social Security, national unemployment insurance, minimum wage laws, workers’ compensation and prohibitions on child labor as part of FDR’s New Deal initiative. Carson, who died in 1964 at the age of 56, was a marine biologist and conservationist who is credited with helping to spark the modern environmental movement with the 1962 publication of her book “Silent Spring.”
According to the Newcastle-based Frances Perkins Center, Perkins was the first woman to serve as a Cabinet secretary. Her parents were from Maine and, though she was born and grew up in Massachusetts, she spent her childhood summers at her grandmother’s farm on the Damariscotta River in Newcastle. The nonprofit organization, housed in the family’s riverside homestead, was founded in 2009 to protect the property and continue Perkins’ “work for social justice and economic security.”
Perkins’ profile was raised among a new generation of Mainers four years ago, when Gov. Paul LePage ordered the removal of a labor-themed mural that hung in the lobby of the state Department of Labor’s offices in Augusta. Perkins was one of several figures featured in the 11-panel mural, which now hangs in the Maine State Museum in Augusta.
“While there are many American women who deserve more recognition than history has granted so far, Frances Perkins is the woman who ought to be the next person to grace the $20 bill, replacing Andrew Jackson,” Christopher Breiseth, chair of the center’s board of directors, wrote in a recent prepared statement.
Peggy Rotundo, a state lawmaker from Lewiston, also has endorsed the selection of Perkins.
“Frances Perkins dedicated her life to improving conditions for America’s working families, yet she is in many respects lost to history,” Rotundo said this week in a prepared statement. “Let’s bring her significant contributions to this nation to light.”
Carson, a Pennsylvania native, lived on Southport Island next to Boothbay Harbor from 1953 to 1957. She is credited with founding the Maine chapter of The Nature Conservancy, which was the fourth such state chapter in the country, and has a national wildlife refuge spread out along the southern Maine coast named in her honor.
Kate Dempsey, spokeswoman for The Nature Conservancy in Maine, said Friday that, while all 15 candidates listed by WomenOn20s are worthy, putting Carson on the $20 bill would be a “fantastic” way to honor the contributions of women to science. It also would highlight the importance of protecting the natural environment.
“She’s another awesome woman,” Dempsey said of Carson. “It’s important that young girls and boys see that science is relevant to their daily lives.”
Whoever might get the honor would be the first woman to appear on modern U.S. paper currency, but not the first depicted on American money. Aside from Martha Washington’s brief appearance on $1 bills printed roughly 120 years ago, suffragist Susan B. Anthony and Shoshone Indian Sacagawea have been featured on $1 coins, and Helen Keller appeared on the Alabama-edition quarter issued in 2003.
According to the U.S. Mint, other women have been featured on limited-edition, commemorative coins, including several $10 gold “First Spouse” coins that have been produced since 2007.
There is one precedent for a Mainer appearing on U.S. currency, but it involved fractional paper currency that was issued during the Civil War and in years that immediately followed, when metals were scarce. The image of William P. Fessenden, a U.S. senator from Maine who was appointed Treasury secretary by President Abraham Lincoln, appeared on 25-cent bills from 1864 to 1869.
While those fractional notes were in circulation, Congress passed a law banning the use of images of any living person on U.S. currency — a ban that is still in effect.
