Dollar Bill Essay

Total Length: 692 words ( 2 double-spaced pages)

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United States is one of the last countries in the world to have a bill with as little value as a single dollar. The euro, pound, Canadian and Australian dollars are all in coins, yet the U.S. dollar bill remains, an icon. The U.S. one dollar bill has a long history, dating to 1862. It was not an original part of the U.S. money system, which was launched with $5, $10, and $20 denominations in 1861 in part to finance the Civil War. The $1 came the following year. The portrait on the original $1 bill was of Salmon P. Chase, who was Treasury Secretary at the time, under President Abraham Lincoln (OneDollarBill.org, 2007). It was another year later before the national banking system was established, in which the U.S. government would back the notes. These bills circulated as one monetary system, while another system, the National Bank notes, also existed at the time (Ibid).

While the U.S. one dollar bill was always known as a greenback, the current design of the bill dates to 1963. The size of the note dates to 1929, however, as do many of the design elements.
George Washington first appeared on the one dollar bill in 1934. By 1969, the design of the bill was finalized, so that at this point most one dollar bills in circulation bear the same design (Ibid).

There are controversial design elements as well. In particular, the all-seeing eye motif with the pyramid is seen by some as representing various things that do not seem to fit on a national currency. The pyramid and eye could refer to the Egyptian god Horus, whose eye never sleeps, or the eye in the pyramid could reflect the Illuminati, something conspiracy theorists love, given how many Freemasons were involved in the founding of the country (Tolles, n.d.). The eye in the pyramid design, however, is also quite Christian in nature, found in many Catholic churches in Italy and Germany for example, representing God's watchful eye, so there are many different interpretations of the meaning of this….....

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