As a member of the Advisory Committee for Women on 20s, I was delighted to hear the announcement on April 20, 2016, from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, that Harriet Tubman will be the face of the $20 bill and that other women will be recognized with placement on the $10 and $5 bill.
It has been many, many years since a woman was on U.S. paper money. Match the "woman on the money" (all of whom have been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame) with her accomplishment:
____ 1. A Quaker and social reformer, she was one of the primary organizers of the first women's rights convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York.
____ 2. The first African-American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera, her concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday 1939 drew 75,000 people.
____ 3. A militant suffragist who organized pickets of the White House and was jailed and force fed for her actions.
____ 4. Dedicated fifty years of her life to the cause of women's suffrage and wrote The Woman's Bible.
____ 5. A former First Lady who served as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.
____ 6. A conductor on the Underground Railroad, she worked as a spy and scout during the Civil War.
____ 7. Most well known for her "Ain't I a Woman" speech delivered at a Woman's Rights Convention in 1851.
____ 8. The name most Americans associated with the women's rights movement, she died before women got the right to vote, but knew it would happen because "Failure is Impossible."
A. Harriet Tubman
B. Sojourner Truth
C. Lucretia Mott
D. Susan B. Anthony
E. Alice Paul
F. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
G. Marian Anderson
H. Eleanor Roosevelt
Harriet Tubman, the new face of the $20 bill, was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, she served as a spy and a scout. Tubman escaped from slavery when she was in her 20s. She returned multiple times to the Eastern Shore of Maryland to rescue others from slavery. Called the "Moses of her people", Tubman received a veteran's pension after the war and semi-military honors at her funeral. A suffragist, Tubman worked for women's rights as well as civil rights and rights for the disabled and the aged.
Most famous for her "Ain't I a Woman Speech" delivered at a Woman's Rights Convention in 1851, Sojourner Truth was a preacher and human rights activist. An escaped slave, she worked for the abolition of slavery and rights for women. Truth recruited black troops for the army during the Civil War and was an activist throughout her life.
A Quaker and social reformer, Lucretia Mott's actions provided a main impetus for igniting the women's rights movement in the U.S. Committed to abolition, Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840. Their interaction in 1848 led to the convening of the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York (the birthplace of women's rights) in July of that year. A founder of Swarthmore College, Mott worked throughout her life on significant social reforms.
The name most Americans know when they think of the women's rights movement, Susan B. Anthony was originally active in the temperance movement. After meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1852 (and often being denied the right to speak at temperance rallies because she was a woman), Anthony dedicated her life to the cause of women's suffrage. She died before the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution enfranchising women was passed or ratified, but her final words reflected her conviction that women would get the right to vote "Failure is Impossible."
Credited with importing militant strategies to the U.S. from England that hastened the passage and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment enfranchising women, Alice Paul led pickets at the White House, suffrage parades, and was jailed and force fed for her actions. She worked to pass the Equal Rights Amendment from 1923 forward.
A woman who dedicated fifty years of her life to the cause of women's suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the Declaration of Sentiments that was the document issued at the first women's rights convention in 1848. The first President of the National Woman Suffrage Association, Stanton was a writer and speaker whose works included The Woman's Bible.
A celebrated contralto, Marian Anderson experienced discrimination throughout her illustrious singing career because of the color of her skin. Denied the ability to sing at Constitution Hall in 1939 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Anderson instead sung in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in a concert attended by 75,000 people. Among her many accomplishments, Anderson was the first African-American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera, sang the national anthem at President Kennedy's inauguration, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
A First Lady, who revolutionized that role, and humanitarian Eleanor Roosevelt arranged for Marian Anderson to sing in front of the Lincoln Memorial and resigned from the DAR in protest of their actions. A humanitarian, she served as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly where as a member of the Human Rights Commission, she wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which she regarded as her proudest accomplishment.
Learn about more she-roes and celebrate amazing women. These women who will all be on the money are among the more than 850 women profiled in the book Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America. Their hard work and dedication to causes that many did not live to see become reality is amazing. I am proud to stand on their shoulders.
(Answers 1-C, 2-G, 3-E, 4-F, 5-H, 6-A, 7-B, 8-D)