Benjamin Franklin's Greatest Invention
Name
Its All About The Benjamin-Ver 4 0.pdf
Size
357.87 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
33a7b64bfa4a7460f45c77fab06f8894
Author(s)
Levenson, Thomas
Date Issued
October 2010
Journal
American History
Publisher
Weider History Group
Citation
Levenson, Thomas. "Benjamin Franklin's Greatest Invention." American History 45.4 (2010) : 26-33.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The only other source of hard currency came from trade that brought in foreign coins, such as the fabled "pieces of eight" that were valued by how much silver or gold they contained. On April 3, 1729, Franklin published a pamphlet with the falsely humble title A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency. In January 1776, in the first use of counterfeiting as a weapon of war, the British set up a printing press aboard the Royal Navy's HMS Phoenix, anchored in New York Harbor. Microfibers, colored threads, fluorescing inks and the rest, the arsenal of modern anti-counterfeiting tricks currently used by the U.S. government, can be traced to that Philadelphia master printer, whose pictures of leaves helped launch a paper money society.
MIT Department
MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
http://www.american-history-magazine.com/default.asp?year=2010&issue=4
