Thread by @RebeccaSpang

Time for another #MoneyAtoZ thread.

A series of tweetorials based on my @iubHistory @IUCollege History of Money course (HIST-W 330).

A is for Ancient Economy
B is for Bitcoin
C is for Cowries
d is for Penny
E is for Euro
F is for Free Banking
and ….G is for Gold. 1/

2/Gold! It’s so sparkly & malleable. It conducts electricity well, doesn’t tarnish, is even edible. Try it on your steak tartare, or put it on your cupcakes!

Biomedical uses as well.

Ah the virtues of inertness.

3/ Who doesn’t enjoy looking at gold coins? Here’s:

Nike on a Macedonian stater;
Trajan on an aureus;
Zeus + eagle on a stater from Hellenistic Bactria;
Huvishka on a dinara from the Kushan Empire, c 150 CE;
all images @BritishMuseum #MoneyAtoZ

4/More modern ones are nice too! Here’s a ducat from Gdańsk, a louis d’or from France, a zecchino from Venice, a sovereign from Pretoria. All photos @ANSCoins

5/ For centuries, people have made gold (and other coins) into jewelry, worn them as talismans or keepsakes, e.g. “looped” 2-guinea piece from 1736, these “holed” coins (Fatimid dinar c. 1110, Peruvian escudo, 1838) all from @ANSCoins numismatics.org/pocketchange/f…

6/ If you look at these objects and think “people have naturally always valued gold, it is intrinsically valuable, no monetary system can be as solid and stable as one based on gold,” then you might be a #goldbug. (term first used in 1870s)

7/ In Poe’s 1843 story “The Gold Bug,” a down-at-heel Southerner becomes obsessed with gold after he finds a scarab beetle; Hawthorne’s 1851 version of the Midas legend has the king accidentally turn his daughter to gold;

8/ Midas of Phrygia was a historical figure from late 8th century BC; like another eastern king (Croesus) he was fabled for his wealth but by c. 400 BC “Midas” was a name commonly given slaves; We have no coins depicting Midas, but here is the burial mound he built for his father

8* Excavation of Midas's capital of Gordion/Gordium began in 1950s with a team of scholars from Penn penn.museum/sites/expediti…

9/ The “Classical” Gold Standard refers, of course, not to the ancient world but to 1870s-1914 when many national currencies were backed by gold and the exchange rates between currencies were more or less fixed; This account is fairly positive: econlib.org/library/Enc/Go…

10/ Tim Alborn’s @OUPAcademic book shows Britons embraced gold as basis for monetary system only while simultaneously mocking other “gawdy” uncivilized cultures that used it for dress, ornament, icons; necklace, 19C Burma, from @V_and_A Collections global.oup.com/academic/produ…

11/ Opponents of the gold standard in UK and elsewhere worried it limited money supply too tightly, so prevented economic growth; by facilitating international “free” trade, it was harmful to local producers

12/Public debate over the Gold Standard peaked in USA, 1870s-1890s, in aftermath of Civil War greenbacks. William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech (1896) only most famous in two decades’ campaign for silver AND gold as basis of monetary system.

13/ Bryan’s argument for bimetallism was populist and nationalist--if adherence to an international standard led by Britain kept Americans poor, it was bad. Some of his supporters were openly antisemitic, arguing that only “the Rothschilds” benefited from the Gold Standard.

14/While some bimetallists evinced xenophobia common among populists, supporters of the gold standard were often Social Darwinists. Thomas Nast's cover for "Robinson Crusoe's Money" shows the golden rooster climbing over a heap of laws + soapboxes (bubbles!) to greet the truth

15/ Michael O’Malley shows supporters of gold standard in 1870s USA often also argued for a “natural” order of supremacy among human “races.” @NBarreyre shows monetary debate created ideological + geographical polarization upress.virginia.edu/title/4734

16/ The trend continues. @zeithistoriker has shown that some contemporary goldbugs combine the nativism of many Populist Bimetallists with the racism/white supremacism implicit (and sometimes explicit) among supporters of the Gold Standard newstatesman.com/politics/econo…

17/ So while gold has many decorative, medical,+ technological uses, modern arguments for the "gold standard" are closely tied to imperialism, racism, and disregard for the financial/economic well being of ordinary people anywhere. #EverythingHasAHistory hnn.us/article/171617

18/Much more could be said about gold, but we might never get to the next letters of the alphabet! #MoneyAtoZ To learn about where most European gold came from before 1600s, I strongly recommend this @PrincetonUPress book (Exhibition at @NMAfA now) press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove…