Time for Change

July 6, 1929, Menasha Record

July 11, 1929, Menasha Record

July 3, 1929, The Daily News-Times (Neenah-Menasha)

Let's take a break today from holiday preparations to go back to a summer that saw the biggest change in US currency since its inception.  Apparently it took a lot of convincing with schematics and reassuring news articles in 1929 to soothe the anxiety our citizens had over the redesign of our paper money.  And while it was a big deal at the time, these changes soon became trivial as the stock market crashed later that year and the country plunged into a depression.  On a more personal note, we've also seen our paper money redesigned in the last twenty years, with the advent of anti-counterfeit measures, such as bigger portraits, special threads, watermarks, and color shifting numerals.