Someone stamping Harriet Tubman's face over Andrew Jackson's in a photo triptych.
Photo: Michele Santomauro

Harriet Tubman’s Face Can Appear on a $20 Bill After All

By Aileen Kwun
December 7, 2019
1 minute read

Next year would have marked a momentous change to the U.S $20 bill, in step with a nationwide plan—first announced in April 2016—to begin circulating a redesign featuring abolitionist and slavery activist Harriet Tubman on its front side, in place of former president Andrew Jackson, whose mug would be relegated to its back. That historic decision has since been delayed by the Trump administration, a disappointment that caused New York City–based industrial designer Dano Wall to take matters into his own hands with the Tubman Stamp, a simple solution for retrofitting your own bills as you please. On sale at Etsy for, why yes, $20, the stamp comes with a circular notch that flushes with the federal reserve seal, a useful detail to ensure the perfect alignment of Tubman’s face upon Jackson’s.

For the tech-forward or frugal, the designer has also open-sourced files that can be used to 3D-print your own stamp for free. “To love this country is to criticize it perpetually,” Wall wrote in a recent Instagram post. As a practical matter, he recommends Tubman stampers use this Ranger Archival Ink in Peat Moss as an optimal match for the money-green used on bills—“undetectable by every digital scanner I’ve found.”