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Definition: greenback from Philip's Encyclopedia

Paper money issued by the US government during the Civil War. Authorized by Congress as legal tender, they could not be redeemed in gold or coins. A total of US$450 million was issued. In 1878, they became convertible to gold.

greenback

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
in U.S. history, legal tender notes unsecured by specie (coin). In 1862, under the exigencies of the Civil War, the U.S. government first issued legal tender notes (popularly called greenbacks) that were placed on a par with notes backed by specie. By the end of the war such notes were outstanding to the amount of more than $450 million. They had been issued as temporary, and in accordance with the Funding Act of 1866 Secretary of State Hugh McCulloch began retiring them. The hard times of 1867 caused many, especially among Western debtor farmers, to demand that the currency be inflated rather than contracted, and Congress suspended the retirement. George H. Pendleton advanced the so-called Ohio Idea, recommending that all government bonds not specifying payment in specie should be paid in greenbacks. John Sherman , more conservative, was nevertheless willing to let the greenbacks stay in circulation on a redemption basis. The question was warmly debated in 1869 and was ended by a…
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Full text Article greenback

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
in U.S. history, legal tender notes unsecured by specie (coin). In 1862, under the exigencies of the Civil War, the U.S. government first issued legal tender notes (popularly called greenbacks) that were placed on a par with notes backed by specie. By the end of the war such notes were outstanding…
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Full text Article Greenbacks

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
Greenbacks were the paper money printed and issued by the U.S. government during the Civil War (1861–65). Prior to the war all currency in the United States was either minted with precious metals or backed by (redeemable for) specie (gold or silver coins). Green-backs—which were printed with green…
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Full text Article greenbacks

From Encyclopedia of American Business History
Paper money first issued by the U.S. Treasury during the Civil War. Unlike other notes in circulation, issued by state banks, greenbacks did not have gold or silver backing. In the 19th century, this was called “nonredeemable into specie.” As a result, greenbacks were originally viewed with great…
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Full text Article Greenbackism

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
Greenbacks were a paper currency first issued by the federal government to help finance the Civil War. They remained in circulation after the war, but in 1873 Congress enacted a specie resumption law that demonetized silver and called for the nation by 1878 to redeem greenbacks in gold. The decision…
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Full text Article Greenback Party

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
This political pamphlet, issued sometime around...
The Greenback Party was a political party of the late nineteenth century that advocated the expansion of the U.S. money supply as a means of decreasing the value of currency, easing the debt burdens of farmers, and promoting economic growth. The party primarily represented farmers and other…
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Full text Article Greenback Party

From Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections
Also known as: Greenback-Labor Party The Greenback Party, fueled by agrarian unrest in the late 19th century, called for an expanded supply of paper money. In 1873, Congress demonetized silver, leaving U.S. currency dependent on the gold standard. The supply of gold, however, could not keep up with…
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Full text Article Greenback movement

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(1868–88) Campaign mainly by U.S. farmers to maintain or increase the amount of paper money in circulation. To finance the American Civil War the U.S. government issued paper money not backed by gold and printed in green ink, called greenbacks. After the war fiscal conservatives called for an end to…
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Full text Article GREENBACK PARTY

From The Reader's Companion to American History
The Greenback party (also called the National Greenback party) was organized in 1876 to campaign for expansion of the supply of paper money—“greenbacks”—first issued by the federal government in 1862 to help pay for the Civil War. The idea that maintaining a flexible supply of paper money served the…
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Full text Article Greenback party

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
in U.S. history, political organization formed in the years 1874–76 to promote currency expansion. The members were principally farmers of the West and the South; stricken by the Panic of 1873, they saw salvation in an inflated currency that would wipe out the farm debts contracted in times of high…
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Full text Article Greenback Labor Party

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
The Greenback Labor Party represented a brief but potent Gilded Age expression of working-class antimonopoly sentiment. In the aftermath of the depression of 1873, the formation of the agrarian-based Greenback Party in 1874–1875, the railroad strikes of 1877, and the electoral success of local…
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