Althouse: The Broadway musical "Hamilton" seems to have saved the image of Hamilton on the $10 bill.

March 17, 2016

The Broadway musical "Hamilton" seems to have saved the image of Hamilton on the $10 bill.

"Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of the hit Broadway musical 'Hamilton,' said on Wednesday that he had received assurances from Jacob J. Lew, secretary of the Treasury, that admirers of Alexander Hamilton would not be disappointed by a forthcoming redesign of the $10 bill. Mr. Lew has said that he wanted to add a woman’s image to that bill...."

Art works.

36 comments:

Wince said...: "Hamilton May Stay on the $10 Bill, Thanks to Help From Broadway."

Well, until Trump is elected.

And don't get me started on Mt. Trumpmore.; 3/17/16, 9:40 AM
dreams said...: And introduced Hamilton to a few liberals providing them with at least a little bit of knowledge.; 3/17/16, 9:40 AM
Known Unknown said...: OT: The best Trump ad ever?; 3/17/16, 9:42 AM
James Pawlak said...: A woman should be on our paper money. I suggest Monica Lewinski. On the reverse a set of knee pads could be presented.; 3/17/16, 9:57 AM
Brando said...: The first Treasury Secretary and one of the most important founding fathers. Keep him on the damn bill. If you want to replace anyone, start with FDR on the dime. He had no trouble putting Americans in long term detention camps based solely on their race and with no due process, so his face on the dime is a microaggression to any Japanese American who has to handle loose change.

If you can't do that, then knock it off.; 3/17/16, 10:00 AM
Bob Ellison said...: I was hoping it would be Bo Derek.; 3/17/16, 10:15 AM
William said...: They didn't have the word fascism back then, so Jefferson accused him of being a royalist. That word packed a punch. Hamilton was not as revered as Jefferson by his contemporaries. Hamilton favored the interests of business. Jefferson liked to think that he was in favor of small farmers. It's worth noting that the interests of commerce favored the abolition of slavery, and the interests of agriculture favored treating men like farm animals. History has decided the argument in Hamilton's favor, but for a long time Jefferson was considered the lofty thinker and Hamilton a bit grubby........Wellington favored royal privilege and the abolition of slavery. Napoleon favored liberty, equality, and fraternity and also the continuation of slavery in the West Indies and serfdom in Russia n order to further these ideals.; 3/17/16, 10:19 AM
Fernandinande said...: Art works.

Apparently "art" had no influence:

"Secretary Lew also reiterated his commitment to continue to honor Alexander Hamilton on the 10 dollar bill."; 3/17/16, 10:28 AM
rcocean said...: Next to Aaron Burr, Hamilton was the least of our founding fathers. I have no idea why we're celebrating a guy who wanted to make George Washington de facto King and make the Senate into an American House of Lords.

While he helped write the Federalist papers, most of his favored ideas were quite rightly rejected.; 3/17/16, 10:30 AM
traditionalguy said...: A Government that favored The hierarchy of the Great Land Owners interests merged with the Great Mercatilist Industrialists' interests was Hamilton's vision. And that was the way it was done. And then along came Jackson.

Today's Jackson is Trump who alone says the Mercantilist Industrialists are all became sell out Globalists enriching themselves using heap labor from Mexico and China. So what good are they unless the do what Hamilton did and rebuild the American Industrialist Economy? None at all. Big Zero.; 3/17/16, 10:37 AM
MadisonMan said...: @Brando, I'm pretty sure that FDR is on the dime because of March of Dimes stuff.

If we're talking money, I say get rid of the penny and the nickel. You can buy nothing worthy with either of those coins.; 3/17/16, 10:45 AM
CJinPA said...: Mr. Lew has said that he wanted to add a woman’s image to that bill...."

Mrs. Hamilton?; 3/17/16, 10:47 AM
buwaya said...: A few (a very, very few) influential people see a Broadway show and this affects public policy.
The whole idea of swapping Hamilton out of the bill was also probably pushed by a very very few, the general public be damned.; 3/17/16, 11:22 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Are twerks?; 3/17/16, 11:32 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: buwaya- Bingo! An artificial controversy (no women on U.S. paper money!) ginned up by the elite few snuffed out by an popular reaction among the elite few to a show few have seen.

Who can afford Broadway tickets?!
Who even uses paper money these days--as if!; 3/17/16, 11:36 AM
mikee said...: Napoleon favored liberty, equality, and fraternity in much the same way Lenin and Stalin supported the efforts to improve the lives of Russian peasants. I think Stalin and Lenin beat out Napoleon for most people killed by their intentional kindnesses, but only because of technological improvements in mass murder and warfare since the early 1800s.; 3/17/16, 11:39 AM
rcocean said...: I saw a little bit of this musical on internet video and bust out laughing. Too bad its not a comedy.; 3/17/16, 11:42 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Just wait until Lew unveils the new ten featuring Alexandra Hamilton.; 3/17/16, 11:48 AM
mccullough said...: Too bad for Andrew Jackson that he's not protected by the Grievance Industry; 3/17/16, 11:48 AM
grimson said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/17/16, 12:11 PM
grimson said...: HoodlumDoodlum @11:36 said: Who even uses paper money these days--as if!

Privacy advocates. Didn't you see "Citizenfour?"; 3/17/16, 12:15 PM
buwaya said...: "Napoleon favored liberty, equality, and fraternity in much the same way Lenin and Stalin supported the efforts to improve the lives of Russian peasants"

This is very perceptive. Napoleons most devoted loyalists, his Guard, were notably Republican and egalitarian in sympathies, and saw Napoleon as their political champion, absurd as it may seem to us.

Napoleon was a "liberal" hero long after his time. It was like remaining fond of Lenin into the 21st century. Stendhal's "Red and the Black" makes this very clear. Victor Hugo had a soft spot for Napoleon. Even Eugene Sue ("The Wandering Jew") looks fondly back on him as being the good old days of egalitarian liberty. The revolutions or 1830 and 1848 had a great deal of Napoleonic nostalgia mixed in there. His nephew (later Napoleon III) made great use of it.; 3/17/16, 12:18 PM
jacksonjay said...: The fundamental transformers had no idea who Hamilton was. Just another white guy founder framer racist to them. So, it took a Puerto Rican hip-hopper to educate the nuveo elitist to the history of the country. Not surprising.

Dreams, Brando and William got it right.; 3/17/16, 12:28 PM
rehajm said...: I was hoping it would be Bo Derek.

That would make the US dollar the globe's reserve currency forever.; 3/17/16, 12:57 PM
Gahrie said...: So they are going to half ass it, and end up pissing everyone off?

The Hamilton lovers will be pissed because he has to share his bill with some women.

The feminists will be pissed because their woman will have to share a bill with Hamilton.

I'm pissed at this guy culturally appropriating Hamilton.; 3/17/16, 1:51 PM
Gahrie said...: Napoleon was a "liberal" hero long after his time.

As "bad" as Napoleon was, he was better for France and Frenchmen than both the former king and the savages that ended up running revolutionary France.; 3/17/16, 1:55 PM
buwaya said...: "he was better for France and Frenchmen"

He ended up killing more Frenchmen than any kings ever, or even the revolutionaries of 1792.; 3/17/16, 2:36 PM
Bill Peschel said...: "He ended up killing more Frenchmen than any kings ever, or even the revolutionaries of 1792. "

You're saying that like it's a bad thing.

... Too soon?; 3/17/16, 2:49 PM
Gahrie said...: He ended up killing more Frenchmen

Some would argue that it was the British, Russians, Prussians et al that did most of the killing.; 3/17/16, 2:53 PM
buwaya said...: "Some would argue that it was the British, Russians, Prussians et al that did most of the killing"

The Spanish probably more than anyone, but no, most died of illness, malnutrition and general hardship, not in combat.; 3/17/16, 3:26 PM
Gahrie said...: You do know that napoleon is considered a hero of French history...not a villain...right?; 3/17/16, 3:32 PM
buwaya said...: "You do know that napoleon is considered a hero of French history...not a villain...right?"

Yes, of course. I have been to the Invalides and the Arc de Triomphe, built decades later. If some French Suetonius was writing of Napoleon, in some "Lives of the Twelve French Caesars" he would use for him Suetonius' one line judgement of history - (Subsequently Deified).

The French like their glory.

It does not mean you or I need to accept the French opinion.; 3/17/16, 3:40 PM
Gahrie said...: I didn't say he was good for us...I said he was good for France and Frenchmen. I am not a huge fan of emperors....but I would have preferred him to Louis or the mob.; 3/17/16, 8:03 PM
Alex said...: Surprised Andrew Jackson hasn't been removed from the $20. "The Trail of Tears" exists because of him.; 3/18/16, 12:42 AM
Alex said...: You can dislike Hamilton all you want - it doesn't change the fact he was one of the important Founding Fathers and writer of most of The Federalist Papers. A god amongst men.; 3/18/16, 12:43 AM
mikee said...: Of course Napoleon is considered a hero of French history - as Stalin and Lenin are considered heroes of Russian history, and Mao is revered in China. Yet all are seen, more correctly, by objective observers outside the respective countries as primarily mass murderering totalitarian despots who were a stain on the history of humanity, not saviours of the nation.

Hell, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are excoriated as utterly vile in the US for owning slaves, and all they did was free a nation from an empire, expound a novel political philosophy that has brought more wealth and prosperity to the world than any other in history, and create through the Revolution and Constitution the very conditions whereby slavery was destroyed in the US.

I'll take our vile historical heroes over those of China, Russia and France any day.; 3/18/16, 10:36 AM