Pictured above is a $1 bill. It features, pictured in the center, an image of George Washington, the first President of the United States. The bill’s design hasn’t meaningfully changed in nearly a century and isn’t likely to change in the near future, either. (Here’s a Now I Know from 2019 explaining why). But if for some reason it does, one thing is for sure: if George Washington’s face is replaced by that of another person, the person depicted will have been long dead.

Why? Because of a guy named Spencer M. Clark.

America was embroiled in a civil war in the early 1860s, and that war created a massive metal shortage. A lack of metal made it hard for the U.S. Treasury to mint coins, and coins were important -- perhaps more so than today. The American economy couldn’t just round everything up to the nearest dollar -- almost all common purchases at the time cost way, way less than a buck. So the government began issuing “fractional currency” -- basically, paper money with the same value as the coins that the treasury could no longer afford to mint. Congress authorized the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to create fractional currency notes worth 3, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 cents. 

As those fractional currency notes didn’t exist yet, the Bureau needed to create brand new designs. But it wasn’t clear whose job it was to approve any such designs, or if the Bureau had any guidance given to them about who, if anyone, should be depicted on these notes. Without such clear direction, the matter fell to Spencer M. Clark, the Superintendant of the National Currency Bureau -- basically, a middle manager working in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Here’s the 5-cent fractional note he and his team designed, printed, and issued in August of 1862: