{ site_name:'The John W. Kluge Center', subscribe_url:'/share/sites/Bapu4ruC/kluge.php' }

Amanda Lahikainen

Amanda LahikainenAppointment: Kluge Fellow, 2013

Area of study: Art History

Affiliation(s): Aquinas College

Kluge Center project: Satire, Representation, and the Politicization of Paper Currency

Residency: June 2013 – December 2013

November 7, 2013

What roles have artists and printmakers played in the normalization of paper money?

Art historian Amanda Lahikainen, Kluge Fellow at The John W. Kluge Center, is researching the responses of British artists and printmakers to the introduction of paper money in England while at the Kluge Center.

Lahikainen has spent the past six months as a scholar-in-residence at The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. She is looking at the ways in which print artists in England satirized the introduction of paper money and the ways in which art may have helped enable paper money to become normalized in society more broadly. 

“Satire responds to important events. One of those important events was the increased use of paper money in England in 1797,” Lahikainen says. “Prime Minister William Pitt declared paper money the de facto currency. Suddenly, people could no longer bring credit instruments to the bank and exchange it for gold. The result was great unease and distrust.”

British satirists responded with grotesque and scatological imagery deriding the new system. Some produced imitation, satirical bank notes that challenged the trust in the new currency. A few supported the new instruments. But in all cases, Lahikainen says, the work of satirists helped to normalize a paper money system backed by trust and not by bullion.

“Even when they’re mocking the currency, they’re also helping people grow more accustomed to it,” Lahikainen says. “This early period of paper money offers an important glimpse into how the process of naturalization took place—a naturalization we take for granted today.”

Among the satirists Lahikainen is researching is little-known engraver John Luffman. Luffman began printing satirical bank notes in 1803, and his notes were re-printed in 1818. The Library of Congress has one of the preeminent collections of satirical banknotes in the world, including Luffman’s.

Lahikainen recently shared examples of British satirical bank notes with researchers at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. “They were unfamiliar with this tradition, and it was wonderful to hear their responses,” she says. “We then spoke about the definition of money more broadly. It was a great discussion.” 

Lahikainen is in residence at the Kluge Center through December.

Events

Additional Resources

To learn more about scholars in residence at The John W. Kluge Center, email us at [email protected] or subscribe to our RSS feed.