Putting a Kansas woman on the $10 bill might be right on the money

For 86 years, Alexander Hamilton’s face has been printed on the $10 bill.

Now, with the bill being redesigned and scheduled to be unveiled in 2020 – the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote – why not make the new face on the $10 bill that of a woman? And better yet, why not a Kansas woman?

Sure, Harriet Tubman, beloved African-American abolitionist and underground railroad conductor, is a strong national contender, as is former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Rosa Parks, according to a national Internet poll that asked Americans whom they favored.

But why not a Kansas woman with national significance? There is still time to nominate.

The U.S. Treasury has created a website – www.thenew10.treasury.gov – for Americans to submit suggestions. The public can propose which woman should be chosen and which symbols of democracy should be included in the redesigned bill.

Comments can also be submitted on Twitter using the hashtag #TheNew10.

“We are asking the American people to tell us what democracy means to them,” Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said last week. “Their feedback will shape what the new bill will look like.”

By law, only a deceased person’s portrait can appear on the nation’s banknotes.

In Kansas, there were many national firsts when it came to women’s rights.

One of the most obvious contenders with Kansas connections would be Susan B. Anthony, women’s suffragist and abolitionist. Although she was not born in Kansas, she lived in Lawrence in 1867, along with other suffragettes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone.

Anthony’s brother Daniel came to Kansas in 1854 to help settle Leavenworth and establish his own newspaper.

Susan B. Anthony declared that any man who voted against female suffrage was a blockhead. And although in 1878 the Susan B. Anthony Amendment to grant women the vote was first introduced in Congress, the 19th Amendment would not be ratified until Aug. 26, 1920.

Kansas lays claim to the first female mayor in the United States with Susannah Madora Salter of Argonia. Salter was elected in 1887.

Kiowa County Sheriff Mabel Chase was the nation’s first woman to be elected sheriff, winning election in 1928.

Or maybe we should think of free spirits and explorers.

In May 1932, Atchison-born Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic alone, a feat that brought her international attention. Earhart disappeared, along with her navigator, Fred Noonan, on July 2, 1937, while flying from New Guinea to Howland Island as part of her attempt to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe.

During the 1890s, Wichitan Mary Elizabeth Lease was nicknamed the “People’s Joan of Arc” because of her efforts to rally and build the national Populist movement. She became one of the Populist’s Party’s most popular and forceful speakers.

Carry A. Nation billed herself as “Your Loving Home Defender.” Her first marriage ended with the death of her alcoholic husband. The second marriage ended in divorce.

Those two facts defined Carry Nation, who was from Medicine Lodge, and made her one of the world’s most recognizable prohibitionists and suffragettes.

But perhaps Kansas women owe the most to Clarina Nichols, who lived in Lawrence, Lane and Quindaro. In the summer of 1859, Nichols was the only woman invited to Wyandotte for a convention that produced the Kansas Constitution. Because of her presence:

▪ Kansas women had the first state-run university that allowed women to attend classes alongside men.

▪ Kansas women had their rights protected in court long before other states saw the need. For example, that meant that in Kansas, women could buy and sell their own property and retain custody of their children in cases of divorce.

▪ Kansas women were allowed to vote in school district elections nearly half a century before the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed.

“Kansas is often overlooked,” said Leo Oliva, Kansas historian. “We are the center of the nation, but it seems nobody knows we are here. And that’s unfortunate, because these women are nationally significant.

“They are women who should be considered.”

This story was originally published June 21, 2015 at 9:28 PM with the headline "Putting a Kansas woman on the $10 bill might be right on the money."