greenback

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The beginnings of many words are obscure, but we know exactly when greenback entered the vocabulary of American English. It was in the Civil War year of 1862, after a year of fighting had made it clear to officials in Washington that there would be no quick victory and vast additional resources would be needed. Paper money was already in circulation, issued by state banks, but the federal government had restricted itself to coins, and coins were fast disappearing under the pressures of war. On February 25, therefore, for the first time in history, the United States Congress approved the issue of paper money backed not with gold or silver but simply with the full faith and credit of the government, and valid for all debts, public and private (except duties on imports and interest on the public debt).

But why greenback? Because of a precaution against the common practices of altering and counterfeiting paper money. To prevent these, a patented ink had been devised that was difficult to erase and also difficult to imitate because it had a secret formula. Being green instead of the usual black, it was also difficult to photograph. The Secretary of the Treasury ordered this special ink to be used for one side of the new notes. Because of the distinctive color on the back of the notes, the Union soldiers who received them in pay began calling them greenbacks, and soon everyone else called them greenbacks too. The blue or gray Confederate money similarly became known as bluebacks and graybacks.

From that time to the present, all U.S. paper money has had a green back, making green the color of money. So we have coined terms like green itself meaning "money" (1898), green handshake (1975), "a bribe or tip," and Greenmail (1983), a play on blackmail. In recent years, green has also been used for a quite different purpose: to describe those who have concern for the natural environment (1971), but the connection of green with money will remain as long as the green stuff (1887) is in circulation.

Greenbacks, the popular name for the U.S. notes issued during the Civil War as legal tender for all debts except tariff duties and interest on the public debt. They served as the standard of value in ordinary commercial transactions after their issue in 1862. The $450 million in greenbacks that was authorized was later permanently reduced to $346,681,016. Although heavily depreciated during the Civil War, greenbacks were much favored by rural proponents of inflationary monetary policies, who rallied for their continuance in the late 1860s and 1870s. Organized as the Greenback Party, the proponents succeeded in postponing the resumption of specie payments until the Resumption Act of 1875, which by 1879had returned the greenback to a value on par with metallic currency.

Bibliography

Ritter, Gretchen. Goldbugs and Greenbacks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Unger, Irwin. The Greenback Era. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964.

A slang term for U.S. paper dollars. Greenbacks got their name from their color, however, in the mid-1800s, "greenback" was a negative term. During this time, the Continental Congress did not have taxing authority. As a result, the greenbacks did not have a secure financial backing and banks were reluctant to give customers the full value of the dollar.

Investopedia Says:
It took half a century to get all the foreign coins and competing state currencies out of circulation, but by the early 1800s, the U.S. was ready to try the paper money experiment again. Bank notes had been in circulation for a while, but because banks issued more notes than they had coin to cover, these notes often traded at less than face value.

In the 1860s, the U.S. created over $400 million in legal tender to finance its war against itself. These were called greenbacks simply because the backs were printed in green. The government backed this currency and stated that it could be used to pay back public and private debts. The value fluctuated according to the North’s success or failure at certain stages in the war. Confederate dollars, also issued during the 1800s, followed the fate of the confederacy and were worthless by the end of the war.

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• Money, Currency, and Denominations - greenback: U.S. legal-tender note, printed in green on the back

Dansk (Danish)
n. - pengeseddel

Nederlands (Dutch)
bankbiljet (V.S.), dier met groene rug

Français (French)
n. - (US) billet vert/billet d'un dollar

Deutsch (German)
n. - Geldschein

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (ΗΠΑ, καθομ.) δολάριο

Italiano (Italian)
banconota

Português (Portuguese)
n. - papel-moeda (m) (Fin.)

Русский (Russian)
государственный банковский билет

Español (Spanish)
n. - papel moneda, billete de banco, pápiro

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - (amerikansk) dollarsedel

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
美钞, 绿背动物

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 美鈔, 綠背動物

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 미국의 달러 지폐

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - グリーンバック, ドル札, 金, 背が緑色の動物

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ورقه نقد امريكيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮שטר של דולר, כל אחת מהחיות שגבן ירוק‬

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