PAC Pacific Current Group Ltd

This time, Alexander Hamilton dodged the bullet.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew will announce plans Wednesday to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, following an extended campaign to solicit public input on his initial proposal to put a woman on the front of the $10 bill, according to a Treasury official.

The subplot over what would happen to Alexander Hamilton, who will remain on the $10 bill, often overshadowed the Treasury Department's campaign to celebrate the contributions of female historical figures.

It isn't clear when the new $20 note will be introduced into circulation. Currency officials began moving ahead with a redesign of the $10 note in 2013, and that bill won't be introduced until 2020.

A woman hasn't appeared on the nation's paper money in more than a century. Tubman, an escaped slave, became a famous abolitionist and ferried other slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad. She served as a Union spy during the Civil War.

The original plan announced last June would have put a woman on the front of the $10 bill to mark the centennial of women's suffrage. Instead, the back of that bill will now include a vignette to honor leaders of that movement.

Devotees of Hamilton and women's groups that were lobbying for a woman to go on the $20 bill appear to have swayed Mr. Lew's decision.

As it became clear in recent weeks that Mr. Lew was considering the bill switch—moving a woman to the $20 while keeping Hamilton on the $10—other women's groups said Mr. Lew was breaking his commitment to put a woman's portrait on the currency. Redesigning the back of the $10 note could serve as an interim step, but it already drew criticism Wednesday from several prominent women in business and entertainment.

"Could there be a better metaphor for the second-class status that continues to limit our girls," said a letter posted by members of the Makers organization, a women's leadership group, on Wednesday.

The campaign to save Hamilton took on a life of its own after the Broadway debut of the popular musical last summer. In hip-hop verse, it tells the biography of Hamilton, an orphaned immigrant who served as a top aide to George Washington before founding the nation's financial infrastructure. Hamilton was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804.

By contrast, Andrew Jackson, who is currently on the $20 bill, was a wealthy slave owner who resettled large numbers of Native Americans. A prominent critic of paper money, he warned of its "deep-seated evil" in his farewell address. Jackson will move to the back of the $20 bill, a Treasury official said.

The $20 note is the third most widely circulated paper bill, and accounted for almost 23% of all bills in circulation last year, according to the Federal Reserve. The $1 note accounts for around 30% of all bills, and the $100 note, around 28%. The $10 note represents fewer than 5% of all bills.

The U.S. was ordered by a federal court in 2008 to redesign several bills to include tactile features for the blind and visually impaired. Officials concluded in 2013 that the $10 bill should go first, which made it the best vehicle for Mr. Lew to ensure a woman would arrive on the currency in the near future.

A gaggle of federal agencies decide on currency-security features, but the Treasury Department has broad powers for the visual displays. Money can't feature living persons. The last paper currency to print a woman's solo portrait was a $1 silver certificate issued in 1891, which featured Martha Washington.

Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 20, 2016 13:45 ET (17:45 GMT)

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