Tag Archives: paper money

Greenbacks, Negro Soldiers, and the President

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, an excerpt from my book Face Value. During the Civil War, Lincoln’s opponents saw African Americans in uniform and Greenback dollars as the same thing: inflated. We can see the same phenomenon today. The Civil War wasn’t all that popular in the North. Despite a […]

March 6, 2012 – 12:17 pm | By admin | Posted in History, teaching | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)

Rethinking the Beast

Ben Butler had the homely man’s suspicion of genetic advantage, and the poor man’s irreverence about class privilege. Nothing in his appearance inspired admiration. Short, paunchy, no heroic proportions or handsome strong features: his bald pate and droopy, crossed eyes made him a satirist’s delight. And satirize him they did. Butler, U.S. Grant recalled, was […]

December 13, 2010 – 2:11 pm | By admin | Posted in History | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (8)

The Gold Standard of Lunacy

The gold standard is coming back in a a big way. Not only do a number of recently elected congressman and Senators favor a return to the gold standard: the President of the World Bank recently initiated a conversation about returning to gold, and the New York Times recently ran an editorial by James Grant […]

November 16, 2010 – 6:18 pm | By admin | Posted in History, Money, Top Posts | Tagged , , , , | Comments (32)