Twenty five dollars - Public domain portrait engraving

Money in the colonies was denominated in pounds, shillings, and pence. The value varied from colony to colony; a Massachusetts pound, for example, was not equivalent to a Pennsylvania pound. All colonial pounds were of less value than the British pound sterling. The prevalence of the Spanish dollar coin in the colonies led to the money of the United States being denominated in dollars rather than pounds. Due to almost no money supply from Britain to colonies, colonies had to issue their own paper money to serve as an exchange. In 1690, the Province of Massachusetts Bay created "the first authorized paper money to pay for a military expedition during King William's War. Other colonies followed the example by issuing their own paper currency in subsequent military conflicts, to pay debts. The paper bills issued by the colonies were known as "bills of credit." Bills of credit were usually fiat money: they could not be exchanged for a fixed amount of gold or silver coins upon demand. The governments would then retire the currency by accepting the bills for payment of taxes. When colonial governments issued too many bills of credit or failed to tax them out of circulation, inflation resulted. This happened especially in New England and the southern colonies, which, unlike the Middle Colonies, were frequently at war. Pennsylvania, however, was not issuing too much currency and it remains a prime example in history as a successful government-managed monetary system. Pennsylvania's paper currency, secured by land, was said to have generally maintained its value against gold from 1723 until the Revolution broke out in 1775. This depreciation of colonial currency was harmful to creditors in Great Britain. The British Parliament passed several Currency Acts to regulate the paper money issued by the colonies. The Currency Act of 1751 restricted the emission of paper money in New England. It allowed the existing bills to be used as legal tender for public debts (i.e. paying taxes), but disallowed their use for private debts (e.g. for paying merchants). Currency Acts of 1751 and of 1764 created tension between the colonies and the mother country and were a contributing factor in the coming of the American Revolution. When the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, all of the rebel colonies, soon to be independent states, issued paper money to pay for military expenses.

The Americana collection of Marian Sadtler Carson (1905-2004) spans the years 1656-1995 with the bulk of the material dating from 1700 to 1876. The collection includes more than 10,000 historical letters and manuscripts, broadsides, photographs, prints and drawings, books and pamphlets, maps, and printed ephemera from the colonial era through the 1876 centennial of the United States. It is believed to be the most extensive existing private collection of early Americana. The collection includes such important and diverse historical treasures as unpublished papers of Revolutionary War figures and the Continental Congress; letters of several American presidents, including Thomas Jefferson; a manuscript account of the departure of the first Pony Express rider from St. Joseph, Mo.; and what may be the earliest photograph of a human face. Many of the rare books and pamphlets in the collection pertain to the early Congresses of the United States, augmenting the Library's unparalleled collection of political pamphlets and imprints. The Carson Collection adds to the Library's holdings the first presidential campaign biography, John Beckley's Address to the people of the United States with an Epitome and vindication of the Public Life and Character of Thomas Jefferson, published in Philadelphia in 1800. The book was written to counter numerous attacks against Jefferson's character, which appeared in newspapers and pamphlets during the bitter election campaign. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division shares custodial responsibility for the collection with the Library's Geography and Map Division, Music Division, Prints and Photographs Division, and the Manuscript Division.