Who’s in Your Wallet? (And How’d He Get There?)

All the talk about putting Harriet Tubman on a U.S. banknote in 2015 led to some interesting discussions. People were excited to share their thoughts. Around that same time, the Washington Post tried to answer the question of how Andrew Jackson’s portrait ended up on the $20 banknote. The Post article informed readers, “We don’t know how Jackson got on the $20 bill.” According to the article, the answer was “lost to history.”

That conclusion raised questions for Ruth Anne Robbins, distinguished clinical professor at Rutgers University, and Genevieve Tung, associate director for Educational Programs at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. How could the U.S. Department of the Treasury—the federal agency in charge of the nation’s currency—lose track of its records? So, they went looking for answers at the National Archives and in the Congressional Record and other legislative histories.