1914 Federal Reserve Note, $20, Industry & Innovation of the US

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1914 $20 Reserve Note Denomination: Twenty Dollars Minted At: Chicago Date(s) Minted: 1914 Specifics: Serial #G40478200A Obverse: U.S. President Grover Cleveland Reverse: Plane, Train & Automobile on Left; Ship, Tug & Statue of Liberty on Right At the Chicago World Fair in 1893 a well-known historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, declared that because white men had settled both coasts of North America and all regions in between, the Frontier was closed; as if the nation was just waiting for someone to make the official announcement, policies and practices toward westward expansion seemed to change overnight. The hardship of traversing the West by handcart and covered wagon was replaced by planes, trains, and automobiles. The American West of the 20th century ceased to be a wild land full of dangerous beasts, and even more dangerous “heathen” humans, and became a destination for adventurous travelers to see marvelous sights and majestic animals; bears, bison, cougars, dear, wolves, and more. The National Park program came into being and Native Americans were paid to dress in the leathers and feathers of their ancestors and meet incoming trains. The former feared enemy of the Indian Wars became a celebrated icon of exploration, with their images plastered on everything from commercial advertisements to government-issued currency. Staged shows featured live shootouts and stagecoach robberies to entertain visitors, and the very act of conquering the West became personified as America’s “Manifest Destiny.” When the Great Depression swept the country in the 1930s the west became a Dust Bowl of neglected lands and poor farmers. Most Americans could not afford to eat, much less travel – which had become a major part of the economy of the western states. The nation – now a vast conglomeration of increasingly impoverished settlements – struggled to survive. The New Deal of the 1940s and the Second World War changed everything, and the West was again remade as hundreds and thousands of unemployed workers were shipped west to build dams, roadways, railways, and cities. When the war ended, hundreds of thousands of people found themselves living in the west to work in the Military-Industrial Complex of Cold-War defenses. The west was again alive with travel and immigration, as inventions like air-conditioning and hydro-electricity made the high deserts and remote locales more livable, oasis cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, Salt Lake, and Boise sprang out of the arid desert. Outdoor sports like skiing, hiking, and hunting brought in tourism, and the economic lows of the 1940s and 1950s boomed into quintessential American entrepreneurialism and fiscal growth in the second half of the century. Finally, television – and later computers and the internet – brought a sprawling nation back into communication with the major cities of the coasts and the West seemed to vanish into a coalesced nation without regions and divisions that continued to the turn of the 21st century. Because of New Deal and post-WWII defense industry federal building programs, nearly half of all the land in the West is owned by the United States government. Such federal interest has become the focus of State vs. Central power arguments surrounding problems like funding for public education and the division of natural resources among the residents of states who are beholden to federal whims. Land policies and the copious amounts of money generated by them are prevalent issues in western politics, and state and national governments are at odds over how these decisions should be made. The 1900s – with the help of internal, external and international happenings – created, and recreated the American West to suit the needs and likes of each period of time. The 20th century ushered in industries and technologies that America was able to compete in because of the West and which made the West more accessible;... read more

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