Home / Trivia / Money & Business
Which two people on current US $10 and $100 bills were never president?
Hamilton was Treasury Secretary and Franklin a Founding Father.
Alexander Hamilton appears on the $10 note and Benjamin Franklin on the $100 note, and neither was president. Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury, appointed by George Washington in 1789 and serving until 1795. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History says he has been the sole portrait on the $10 since the small-size Series 1928 notes entered circulation in 1929.
Hamilton built much of the early US financial system, pushing for a national bank and the US Mint, and his centralizing views put him at odds with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In 2015 Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced a plan to put a woman on the $10, but after public reaction, Hamilton was kept and other plans were pursued for adding women to currency.
Britannica says Franklin is on the $100 because of his role as a statesman, inventor, diplomat and thinker about money, not because he held high office. He argued for paper currency and printed colonial notes using anti-counterfeiting features such as leaf prints. Other denominations differ: most current US notes show presidents, so the 'never president' feature applies to these two bills only.