Seneca Falls, N.Y. • Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony were the names most mentioned Monday as women who should be considered for a redesigned $10 bill during a town hall meeting with U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios.
Eleanor Roosevelt and Elizabeth Cady Stanton also had support as Rios took suggestions and answered questions during the hourlong session inside the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, site of the first women's rights convention in 1848.
"This is such a historic moment for all of us," Rios said during the latest in a series of public discussions held since June, when Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced a redesign of the $10 bill that would replace the portrait of Alexander Hamilton with one of a woman.
Afterward, Rios said several hundred names have been suggested but that no finalists have been chosen.
Christine Doolittle of Montour Falls said she would prefer the former first lady and activist go on the $20 bill in place of Andrew Jackson. "What's wrong with two women?" she asked.
Tubman, a conductor of the Underground Railroad, had strong support in the crowd, although several people, including a woman who identified herself as a descendant, said they, too, would prefer to see her replace Jackson. Efforts to get Tubman on the $20 bill predate the announcement that the $10 bill would be redesigned.
"We want Aunt Harriet on the 20," Pauline Copes-Johnson, 88, who said she is a great-great-grand-niece of Tubman, said after the meeting. "She is the woman who helped change the outcome of the United States, and I'm very proud of her and her accomplishments."
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