Speaker 1: I guess what, mango, what's that? Well, so you may
Speaker 1: have heard this before, but did you know there's actually
Speaker 1: a law that states that only dead people can appear
Speaker 1: on us currency. You know, I had heard that before.
Speaker 1: But what's funny. It's like, why did that become a law?
Speaker 1: Like why was that important enough to put into writing?
Speaker 1: It really is, it's it's weird, and I was wondering
Speaker 1: the same thing. So I decided to look back at this,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that I did because it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of a weird and fun story. But it goes back
Speaker 1: to this superintendent of the National Currency Bureau and was
Speaker 1: a guy named Spencer Clark, and this was back in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, so a long time ago, and he
Speaker 1: oversaw the creation of what we're called fractional bills. And
Speaker 1: I didn't remember a whole lot about these, but these
Speaker 1: were bills that were not as big as regular ones.
Speaker 1: They were five cent, ten cent cent, and these other denominations.
Speaker 1: But they were actually made because the nation was dealing
Speaker 1: with a coin shortage. This was just after the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and so Congress had asked the Bureau to make a
Speaker 1: new fractional bill in honor of William Clark. Now this
Speaker 1: is the Clark from Lewis and Clark fame. But the
Speaker 1: document that was passed along to Spencer Clark only said Clark.
Speaker 1: Now you may notice that he had the same last name.
Speaker 1: So as a joke, Spencer Clark decided to interpret that
Speaker 1: as being about himself, and so he actually had the
Speaker 1: five cent bill made with his own mug on it.
Speaker 1: This is not a joke, he really did. Fancy. That's
Speaker 1: pretty gutsy, huh. How did this joke go over? Well?
Speaker 1: About as well as you could imagine. Congress was not
Speaker 1: at all pleased. So Congressman Russell Thayer successfully pushed to
Speaker 1: have a law passed that stated that hereafter, no portrait
Speaker 1: or likeness of any living person should be engraved or
Speaker 1: placed on any bonds, securities, notes, or postal currency of
Speaker 1: the United States. So that is why only dead people
Speaker 1: can appear on money for now, because of a prank.
Speaker 1: I kind of love that I do too. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's really just one of many fun facts about the
Speaker 1: things that we see on our money. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today. So let's dive in. M
Speaker 1: Aither podcast listeners. Welcome to part time genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and it's always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 1: Mangesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof
Speaker 1: class showing off one of the world's weirdest piggy banks.
Speaker 1: It's this green pig and for some reason, it says
Speaker 1: Dill Pickle on it. I don't really, I don't get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't get it either, And and apparently he isn't
Speaker 1: alone in this. Like you can actually buy these on eBay.
Speaker 1: They're marketed as the perfect piggy banks for foodies for
Speaker 1: some reason. That's a that's another weird one from our
Speaker 1: friends and producer Tristan McNeil. So, Mango, are you ready
Speaker 1: to talk money? I am. I was thinking about money
Speaker 1: this week, and I immediately started thinking about Alex p.
Speaker 1: Keaton from Family Ties him of course more than like
Speaker 1: Scrooge mcdock or Ritchie Rich or Gordon Gecko from Wall Street, Like,
Speaker 1: this is the character I associate with money. And it's
Speaker 1: all because of one scene that somehow like stuck in
Speaker 1: my head. It's uh. He was talking about how much
Speaker 1: he loved money, and some other character would throw a
Speaker 1: coin into a jar and he just identified it by
Speaker 1: the sound, so he'd be like nickel Quarter doing an
Speaker 1: episode on money made me think of that, plus saying
Speaker 1: Kristen's dill pickle bank. Anyway, I do you want to
Speaker 1: pick up where you left off? And that's what people
Speaker 1: we find on our dollar bills and specifically presidents. To me,
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting that the earliest coins and bills didn't
Speaker 1: actually have any presidents on them, and that was partially
Speaker 1: because of George Washington and who he was. He made
Speaker 1: it clear he didn't want his image on any currency,
Speaker 1: despite other people pushing for it, and this actually made
Speaker 1: sense because the US had obviously been rebelling against the
Speaker 1: country that liked putting their heads estates on their money,
Speaker 1: and instead the founding fathers decided to use imagery that
Speaker 1: they felt symbolized the type of government that they were
Speaker 1: aiming to build. So they use things like an American
Speaker 1: eagle on one side and then a Goddess of Liberty
Speaker 1: on the other, which is super interesting because you know,
Speaker 1: while men and mostly white men are on phases of
Speaker 1: money right now, like at one point, women were better
Speaker 1: represented on some of our earliest currencies. So so when
Speaker 1: exactly did presidents start appearing on our money. Um, if
Speaker 1: I tell you this does account as one of my facts,
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting. I'm looking over Tristan and he
Speaker 1: is nodding pretty aggressively, and he sets the rules around here,
Speaker 1: so I guess it has to but I feel like
Speaker 1: it's worth sharing anyway. So the first president didn't appear
Speaker 1: on US currency until nine nine, and that's a hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty three years after the country was created, and
Speaker 1: right around a hundred years after Lincoln was born. And
Speaker 1: that's actually how it all got started. So Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: was president at the time, and he wanted to find
Speaker 1: a way to celebrate that anniversary. He actually always a
Speaker 1: close connection to Lincoln. I don't know if you remember this,
Speaker 1: but he had attended Lincoln's funeral procession as it moved
Speaker 1: through New York City when he was a boy. I
Speaker 1: think he's six years old at the time. When he
Speaker 1: became president, he wore a ring that had strands of
Speaker 1: Lincoln's hair in it. So when he actually had the
Speaker 1: power to do so, he had a series of commemorative
Speaker 1: pennies made in Lincoln's honor, twenty two million of them
Speaker 1: in fact, and then Reckon public seemed to like them
Speaker 1: so much that they just stuck around and everyone kept
Speaker 1: making them, and so that's what what started it all.
Speaker 1: And and presidents just started showing up left and right
Speaker 1: on these coins or what you know. Surprisingly, it wasn't
Speaker 1: the floodgate you might imagine. It was actually another twenty
Speaker 1: three years before another president appeared, and that was Washington
Speaker 1: on a commemorative quarter in ninety two, which of course
Speaker 1: was also a big hit. So the men just kept
Speaker 1: making them. That's interesting, all right, Well, I want to
Speaker 1: talk for a minute about the ridges on our coins,
Speaker 1: you know, the ones along the kind of the edge
Speaker 1: of the coin. And I think most of us have
Speaker 1: heard that they're there to help prevent counterfeiting, and you know,
Speaker 1: because it makes it that much more detailed than hard
Speaker 1: to reproduce. But there's actually a slightly different origin to
Speaker 1: these ridges that I've I've never heard about. So in
Speaker 1: the earliest days, the US meant coins were actually made
Speaker 1: of their actual value in gold or silver or whatever
Speaker 1: precious metal. And so that meant that a five dollar
Speaker 1: coin was actually made of five dollars in gold. The
Speaker 1: problem was that this metal was so valuable that people
Speaker 1: started just kind of filing it down, you know, on
Speaker 1: the smooth edges of these coins, and then they would
Speaker 1: sell off the shavings, and this became known as clipping,
Speaker 1: and so those who were really good at this could
Speaker 1: actually shave off just enough where people wouldn't notice, and
Speaker 1: then they could still use those coins. But that became
Speaker 1: much harder to pull off as the ridges were put
Speaker 1: into place, because you know, if somebody shaved off any coin,
Speaker 1: it would no longer have those ridges. And so you know,
Speaker 1: even though those coins are no longer made of these
Speaker 1: same precious metals, some still have these ridges. And it
Speaker 1: actually turns out that preventing counterfeiting isn't the only reason
Speaker 1: for that. Is it just tradition then, mean, that's definitely
Speaker 1: one reason, because it was something that was put in
Speaker 1: place a long time ago. But one of the others
Speaker 1: is that it's actually another helpful way for the visually
Speaker 1: impaired to tell what coin they're holding, because some coins
Speaker 1: have the ridges and others don't, So, for example, you know,
Speaker 1: dimes have reads, pennies don't, so it you know, it
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense when you think about it,
Speaker 1: all right, Mango, So what do you want to talk
Speaker 1: about next, Well, I do feel like we have to
Speaker 1: address the fact that pretty much every bill we get
Speaker 1: our hands on is disgusting, and so we do we
Speaker 1: have to address this. So there's this one two reports
Speaker 1: in the Southern Medical Journal, and it showed that more
Speaker 1: than of bills tested have some form of harmful pathogen
Speaker 1: on them, So we're talking about stuff like Staphylococcus uh
Speaker 1: and other gross things. And the same study actually showed
Speaker 1: that most bills have at least trace amounts of fecal
Speaker 1: matter on them, which is also wonderful. I'm never using
Speaker 1: anything but a credit card ever. Again, it feels like
Speaker 1: it would be wise to like wash your hands after
Speaker 1: using dollar bills. But that's not all it's it's wild
Speaker 1: that one study back in the late nineties found that
Speaker 1: somewhere around eighty percent of bills in circulation had trace
Speaker 1: amounts of cocaine on them. Oh, that is wild. So
Speaker 1: of like all bills they have this on that's so
Speaker 1: disgusting it is, But you know, it's definitely more some
Speaker 1: types of bills than others that it turns out if
Speaker 1: you really want to avoid a hint of cocaine on
Speaker 1: your bills, it's best to use ones and fives over
Speaker 1: tens and twenties. Okay, well, that's something I'll keep in mind.
Speaker 1: All well, here's something I hadn't paid much attention to.
Speaker 1: But have you seen the spiky circle that's on the
Speaker 1: right side of Washington on the one dollar bill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is actually the seal of the Treasury, and
Speaker 1: it's one part of the dollar bill that has actually
Speaker 1: had to change a little bit over the years because
Speaker 1: the number of spikes is intended to match the number
Speaker 1: of states in the Union. So they are now, of
Speaker 1: course fifty there. But this is definitely not the number
Speaker 1: you find most represented on our bills. So have you
Speaker 1: noticed that there is a bit of an obsession with
Speaker 1: the number thirteen? So the shield and the Treasury seal
Speaker 1: that I just mentioned has thirteen stars to represent the
Speaker 1: thirteen original colonies, but there are so many more reminders
Speaker 1: that we have these thirteen original colonies. They're thirteen stars
Speaker 1: above the eagles head, thirteen stripes on the shield in
Speaker 1: front of the eagle, thirteen arrows in one of the
Speaker 1: eagles talents, thirteen leaves with thirteen olive branches, and something
Speaker 1: I had not heard before, and that's the fact that
Speaker 1: there are thirteen letters in e pluribus unum. That is strange.
Speaker 1: You know, as soon as you said the number thirteen,
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking thirteen colonies. I was just thinking like
Speaker 1: how unlucky the number thirteen is. And it is funny
Speaker 1: that it's just like blasted all over our bills. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: So here's a weird one. We all know. Andrew Jackson
Speaker 1: is on the twenty dollar bill. There's been all this
Speaker 1: hubbub whether he should be there, like or whether we
Speaker 1: can take him off. I know we've talked about replacing
Speaker 1: him with Harriet Tubman recently, um or someone just less
Speaker 1: horrible than he is. But there's this weird thing about
Speaker 1: having Jackson on the bill, and also that people are
Speaker 1: fighting to keep him there. And it's that Jackson didn't
Speaker 1: believe in paper money, Like yeah, he actually used his
Speaker 1: farewell addressed as president to blast the idea of paper currency,
Speaker 1: claiming it had no intrinsic value and that it would
Speaker 1: quote render property insecure and wages unsteady and uncertain. So,
Speaker 1: you know, having him on the twenties almost like having
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon on your soup labels, which I know it's
Speaker 1: a weird reference, but he didn't believe in soup, and
Speaker 1: he had a band from the White House. I wasn't
Speaker 1: expecting it to bring soup into this. But all right,
Speaker 1: well we've each got one more fact to share. But
Speaker 1: before we get to those, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, part time genius. We were talking about things
Speaker 1: we find on our money. So far, we found cocaine,
Speaker 1: We found the number of thirteen a lot. But I
Speaker 1: know during the break you mentioned that you had a
Speaker 1: fact about that Latin motto e pluribus unum, which I
Speaker 1: think we all learned in school means out of many one.
Speaker 1: But uh, that wasn't your last fact, was it. Well, no, mago,
Speaker 1: come on, I got better stuff than that. But all right,
Speaker 1: this is just one more reference to the original thirteen colonies,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned. But what I found funny was that
Speaker 1: the founding fathers may have actually borrowed this phrase from
Speaker 1: a popular magazine. It wasn't something that they actually came
Speaker 1: up with themselves. So there was this British periodical that
Speaker 1: started back in seventeen thirty two and it ran for
Speaker 1: nearly two centuries, and it was called Gentleman's Magazine and
Speaker 1: it's it's not as dirty as it sounds. Anyway, on
Speaker 1: every issue was this phrase e pluribus unum. But in
Speaker 1: this case this was actually referring to the fact that
Speaker 1: so many articles were coming from so many differ prints sources,
Speaker 1: but all brought together into one publication. So it kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense why they would say this. So as
Speaker 1: Gentlemen's Magazine started gaining popularity in the colonies, it seems
Speaker 1: very possible that they were actually inspired by this phrase,
Speaker 1: and so that maybe where it came from. Anyway. All right, Mago,
Speaker 1: So what is your last fact of the day. Well,
Speaker 1: I like that you spotted plagiarism basically on our bellar bills.
Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing. So I think I'm gonna end with
Speaker 1: the fact about the two signatures you see on every
Speaker 1: print bill here in the US. One is from the
Speaker 1: Treasure of the United States and one's from the Secretary
Speaker 1: of the Treasury. Wait, so that those aren't the same thing. No,
Speaker 1: So the Treasure actually advises the Secretary about various currency,
Speaker 1: but it's the Secretary that makes the final calls. And
Speaker 1: the current Secretary of the Treasury is Steve Munusan. He's
Speaker 1: actually the seventy seven person to hold his title, and
Speaker 1: every one of them has been a man. But this
Speaker 1: is the more interesting part. The current treasure is Jovita
Speaker 1: Carranza or Jovita Corenza. I might be pronouncing that wrong,
Speaker 1: but she's actually the forty four person in this position,
Speaker 1: and it's actually only been held by women for the
Speaker 1: past seven decades, dating back to Harry Truman appointing the
Speaker 1: first female in this role. That's so weird. So only
Speaker 1: men in one role and only women for the past
Speaker 1: seven decades. It feels like just another reminder of how
Speaker 1: weird people are about gender stuff, isn't it. Yeah. In fact,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lawless, who's the director of the Women in Politics
Speaker 1: and Student at American University, she actually said this about
Speaker 1: it quote. Once there's a woman appointed in a position,
Speaker 1: it's easy to assume that position is one that could
Speaker 1: be filled by a woman. Once an initial ceiling is broken,
Speaker 1: once an initial piece of progress is made, there's a
Speaker 1: tendency to continue down that path. All right, Well, here's
Speaker 1: to a woman holding the position of Secretary of Treasury
Speaker 1: at some point in the not too distant future, And
Speaker 1: I feel like may go for that little reminder of
Speaker 1: just how weird people are. I feel like I need
Speaker 1: to give you today's trophy. Well, I will take it
Speaker 1: because I feel like I haven't earned a trophy in
Speaker 1: a little bit. It from Tristan gave will Amy. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. M