New York Fed Research Library

Frogs? Santa Claus? Goddesses? In the past, U.S. currency has featured much more than just the images of deceased presidents and pyramids.
For a view of some surprising images that have appeared on U.S. paper currency, see “Symbols on American Money,” published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. What you won’t find is an image of a king or a queen, dead or alive.

New York Fed Research Library

Answer: When they create money. A number of “trompe l’oeil” (literally, “fool-the-eye”) painters at the turn of the last century included money among the everyday objects they painted so realistically. Although most of these artists depicted the money alongside other objects, William Michael Harnett (1848-92) sometimes painted just the money and was arrested for counterfeiting in 1886. New York law officers seized a painting entitled “Five Dollar Bill” from where it hung in a saloon and demanded that Harnett hand over other “counterfeit” paintings. After viewing the painting, the judge advised that “the development and exercise of a talent so capable of mischief should not be encouraged.” Harnett never painted money again.

New York Fed Research Library

Over the years, the Federal Reserve System has used many methods to communicate about the role it plays in support of stable prices, full employment, and financial stability. Current communication tools include the new press conferences by the Chairman, speeches by Bank presidents, public websites, economic education programs, local outreach efforts, publications, and blogs like this one.

New York Fed Research Library

Joseph Schumpeter (February 8, 1883–January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born economist famous for his contributions to many fields in economics, including growth theory and entrepreneurship. He is perhaps most famous for his theory of growth as a consequence of “creative destruction.” Schumpeter was also ambitious, as this recollection by Paul Samuelson, an even more famous economist, suggests:

“I have retold Schumpeter’s story about his three wishes in life—to be the greatest lover in Austria, the best horseman in Europe, and the greatest economist in the world—and his regret of having failed to fulfil the second wish.”

New York Fed Research Library

In times of economic uncertainty, most people’s natural response is to cling to cash in the interest of self-preservation. As the recent financial crisis demonstrated, financial institutions may hoard cash as well, creating a credit freeze.

New York Fed Research Library

An article written in March 1907 (on the cusp of a financial panic, and before the creation of the Federal Reserve) poses the question, “Is there money enough.” The author, F. A. Vanderlip, President of National City Bank (later Citibank), observes that a banking system without a central bank is prone to disorderly “retreats or advances,” with every banker acting for himself and none for the greater good:

“Many Europeans tell us that we are barbarously wasteful of money under our current banking system. They say that with our system of twenty thousand unregulated organizations, we are like a nation going to war with an army that has no centralized authority, with an army where each man is fighting as he independently thinks best; with no one to give general orders for retreat or advance….With us in any time of stress, each bank looks only to its own position, and reaches for reserves for its own vault, at no matter what cost to the whole system.”

New York Fed Research Library

Speculative bubbles have been a recurring theme in financial history. One of the first documented market bubbles occurred in the 1600s and involved a booming (or should we say “blooming”?) tulip market in the Netherlands.

New York Fed Research Library

Most people know that financial crises are nothing new. But many of us may not know that attempts to represent them graphically have also been around. L. Merle Hostetler, former director of research of the Cleveland Fed, created a graphic presentation of American financial history from 1861 through 1938.