--- title: New $10 Bill: The U.S. Wanted a Woman on Money as Long Ago as 1978 description: There were lots of suggestions for who it should be, but the end result was a disappointment. canonical: https://time.com/3925559/susan-b-anthony-women-currency/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-18T01:55:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T08:18:26.287Z article:section: History og:title: What Happened When the U.S. Decided to Put a Woman on Currency in 1978 og:description: There were lots of suggestions for who it should be, but the end result was a disappointment og:url: https://time.com/3925559/susan-b-anthony-women-currency/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a8f14cc36bd69a4/69885515428a9ecab8ccdc75/susan.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Portrait Of Susan B. Anthony og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Happened When the U.S. Decided to Put a Woman on Currency in 1978 twitter:description: There were lots of suggestions for who it should be, but the end result was a disappointment twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a8f14cc36bd69a4/69885515428a9ecab8ccdc75/susan.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Happened When the U.S. Decided to Put a Woman on Currency in 1978  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 18, 2015 1:55 AM UTC  Profile portrait identified as Susan B Anthony in her 30s by SouthworthHawes (Albert Sands Southworth 1811-1894 and Josiah Johnson Hawes 1808-1901, American) (from a daguerreotype in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), c 1850. Profile portrait identified as Susan B Anthony in her 30s by SouthworthHawes (Albert Sands Southworth 1811-1894 and Josiah Johnson Hawes 1808-1901, American) (from a daguerreotype in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), c 1850.GraphicaArtis / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 18, 2015 1:55 AM UTC The U.S. Treasury Department has announced that an upcoming redesign of the $10 bill, which features the likeness of Alexander Hamilton, former Secretary of the Treasury, should include the image of a woman. In a statement, the Treasury said it should specifically feature one “who was a champion for our inclusive democracy.” The note would be unveiled in 2020, a century after women were given the right to vote. But in the mean time, the Treasury is asking Americans to voice their opinions about the change on social media. This won’t be the first time the Treasury decided it would be a good time to make the nation’s currency a little less male. As TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1978-05-29/page/74/) in 1978: --- > “” --- The Treasury’s official suggestion, meanwhile, steered away from historical women. The [Statue of Liberty](http://time.com/3910750/statue-liberty-pictures/) was their pick. (Which didn’t go over well: “We have real birds and real buffalo on our coins; it’s time we had a real woman,” [said](http://time.com/vault/issue/1978-07-31/page/77/) Patricia Schroeder, a Colorado congresswoman.) It was expected that the chosen face would be one that Americans would get very used to seeing. The new coin worked in vending machines! It didn’t fall apart! If you kept it in your pocket in the laundry, no big deal! Plus, its unique shape would be a help for the vision-impaired. [A year later](http://time.com/vault/issue/1980-01-28/page/51/), however, it was clear that those hopes were misplaced. More than 750 million of the coins had been minted, but only about a third were in circulation. Congress had acted to make sure that introducing the coin didn’t mean phasing out bills, and the public didn’t seem interested in making the switch voluntarily, especially because many felt that the coin was too easily confused for a quarter. It wasn’t in production for very long—minting was “postponed” [in August of 1980](http://time.com/vault/issue/1980-08-11/page/69/)—but it did go through a brief resurgence [in 1999](http://time.com/vault/issue/1999-06-07/page/118/), when it was reissued for a little while in order to meet demand as vending-machine change in the time between depletion of reserves and the issuance the following year of the Sacagawea coin, which has stuck around but similarly failed to inspire the nation to put away their notes. Now, however, it looks ever like those who want to see a woman on currency won’t have to ditch their billfolds. **_Read all about the 1979 decision to put Anthony on the dollar coin, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Numismatic Ms.](http://time.com/vault/issue/1979-07-09/page/56/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3925559/susan-b-anthony-women-currency/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3925559/susan-b-anthony-women-currency/"},"headline":"What Happened When the U.S. Decided to Put a Woman on Currency in 1978","datePublished":"2015-06-18T01:55:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T08:18:26.287Z","description":"There were lots of suggestions for who it should be, but the end result was a disappointment","url":"https://time.com/3925559/susan-b-anthony-women-currency/","keywords":["feminism","women","Economy","Money"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a8f14cc36bd69a4/69885515428a9ecab8ccdc75/susan.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a8f14cc36bd69a4/69885515428a9ecab8ccdc75/susan.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Portrait Of Susan B. Anthony","caption":"Portrait Of Susan B. Anthony","creditText":"GraphicaArtis / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3925559/susan-b-anthony-women-currency/","name":"What Happened When the U.S. Decided to Put a Woman on Currency in 1978"}}]}] ```