Every day, tens of millions of crisp, green bills roll off fast, automated presses at the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving.
A hundred years ago, the process looked very, very different. Back then, it took the bureau a year to make as many bills as it can now make in two days.
These beautiful, old photographs from the Library of Congress were taken near the turn of the 20th century. They show a time when making currency was a slow, hands-on process.
Hear a Planet Money story about a company that has made the paper used for U.S. currency since 1879.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
Last month, a Washington, D.C. subway station was plastered with posters of giant dollar bills. One of them said: "Tell Congress to stop wasting time trying to eliminate the dollar bill." The $70,000 ad blitz was part of a small lobbying war over the fate of the dollar bill.
The U.S. government is $14.3 trillion in debt. Stacked in dollar bills, that amount would stretch to the moon and back — twice. Still, it's pretty hard to wrap your head around a number that big, so the human brain has come up with ways to deal with gargantuan numbers.