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Article: Greenback Movement
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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GREENBACK MOVEMENT
GREENBACK MOVEMENT.
To meet the enormous demands of the Civil War, the federal government in 1863 began issuing large quantities (as much as from $300 to $400 million in circulation between 1862 and 1879) of "greenbacks," notes not redeemable for gold. At the close of the war, fiscal conservatives expected a return to the gold standard and a constriction in the monetary supply. However, the increased cash available was attractive, not as a wartime expediency but as a monetary policy, to a growing group of Greenbackers. Frequently westerners and southerners, they were alienated by the limited supply of specie-backed notes available through the eastern-dominated ...
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