Welcome to Green Back, All about the US dollar in history and today
The Greenback or US dollar of the United States began its life in 1690 long before the birth of the country when the region was still a separate group of colonies. Massachusetts as a colony used paper notes to finance military expeditions. After the initial introduction of paper money in Massachusetts, the rest of the then separate colonies followed suit.
In 1775, when the colonies were readying the war with the British, the Continental Congress introduced the Continental currency. Nonetheless, the currency did succeed as there was insufficient financial support and the notes were easy to counterfeit.
The United States congress then requested the first national bank in Philadelphia they called the Bank of North America to assist the government with its finances. The creation of the dollar to become the monetary unit for the United States happened in 1785. In 1792 what is known as the Coinage Act helped put create an organized monetary system that introduced coinage in silver, gold and copper. Paper currency or greenbacks were brought into the system in 1861 to assist in the financing of the Civil War. Paper currency used several different techniques such as official Treasury seals and ornate engraved signatures to reduce counterfeiting. Congress mandated the national banking system in 1863 that established the US Treasury permission to oversee the printing of National Bank notes. Overnight, national banks now had authority to distribute money and to purchase US bonds effortlessly while still being regulated by the government.
In 1913 the federal government approved the Federal Reserve Act creating one central bank and implemented a national banking system to maintain and foster the changing financial requirements of the country. A new currency called the Federal Reserve Note was created by the Federal Reserve Board at this time. The original federal paper money was issued in the form of a ten dollar bill in 1914. The Federal Reserve board took an important step by reducing the manufacturing costs of the currency by reducing the actual size of the notes 30% and saving on both paper and ink. Further saving were made by printing the same designs on all dominations instead of separate designs.
Incredibly, the artwork & designs of the federal notes would not change until 1996 when a series of enhancements were introduced during a ten-year period to deter counterfeiting of the notes.
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