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Bimetallism, also known as the bimetallic standard, is a
monetary standard A monetary system is a system by which a government provides money in a country's economy. Modern monetary systems usually consist of the national treasury, the mint, the central banks and commercial banks. Commodity money system A commodity m ...
in which the value of the
monetary unit A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general def ...
is defined as equivalent to certain quantities of two metals, typically
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
and
silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...
, creating a fixed rate of exchange between them. For scholarly purposes, "proper" bimetallism is sometimes distinguished as permitting that both gold and silver money are
legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in ...
in unlimited amounts and that gold and silver may be taken to be coined by the government mints in unlimited quantities. This distinguishes it from "limping standard" bimetallism, where both gold and silver are legal tender but only one is freely coined (e.g. the moneys of France, Germany, and the United States after 1873), and from "trade" bimetallism, where both metals are freely coined but only one is legal tender and the other is used as "trade money" (e.g. most moneys in western Europe from the 13th to 18th centuries). Economists also distinguish ''legal'' bimetallism, where the law guarantees these conditions, and ''
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' bimetallism, where gold and silver coins circulate at a fixed rate. During the 19th century there was a great deal of scholarly debate and political controversy regarding the use of bimetallism in place of a
gold standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the l ...
or
silver standard The silver standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of silver. Silver was far more widespread than gold as the monetary standard worldwide, from the Sumerians 3000 BC until 1873. Following ...
(
monometallism Metallism is the economic principle that the value of money derives from the purchasing power of the commodity upon which it is based. The currency in a metallist monetary system may be made from the commodity itself (commodity money) or it may us ...
). Bimetallism was intended to increase the supply of money, stabilize prices, and facilitate setting exchange rates. Some scholars argued that bimetallism was inherently unstable owing to
Gresham's law In economics, Gresham's law is a monetary principle stating that "bad money drives out good". For example, if there are two forms of commodity money in circulation, which are accepted by law as having similar face value, the more valuable com ...
, and that its replacement by a monometallic standard was inevitable. Other scholars claimed that in practice bimetallism had a stabilizing effect on economies. The controversy became largely moot after
technological progress Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
and the South African and Klondike Gold Rushes increased the supply of gold in circulation at the end of the century, ending most of the political pressure for greater use of silver. It became completely academic after the 1971 Nixon shock; since then, all of the world's currencies have operated as more or less freely floating
fiat money Fiat money (from la, fiat, "let it be done") is a type of currency that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender. Throughout history, fiat money was sometim ...
, unconnected to the value of silver or gold. Nonetheless, academics continue to debate, inconclusively, the relative use of the metallic standards.


Historical creation

From the 7th century
BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
,
Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
, especially in the areas of Lydia and Ionia, is known to have created a coinage based on
electrum Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals. Its color ranges from pale to bright yellow, depending on the proportions of gold and silver. It has been produced artificially, and ...
, a natural occurring material that is a variable mix of gold and silver (with about 54% gold and 44% silver). Before Croesus, his father
Alyattes Alyattes (Lydian language: ; grc, Ἀλυάττης ; reigned c. 635-585 BC), sometimes described as Alyattes I, was the fourth king of the Mermnad dynasty in Lydia, the son of Sadyattes, grandson of Ardys, and great-grandson of Gyges. ...
had already started to mint various types of non-standardized electrum coins. They were in use in Lydia and surrounding areas for about 80 years. The unpredictability of its composition implied that it had a variable value which was very hard to determine, which greatly hampered its development.


Croeseids

Croesus (reigned – BCE), king of Lydia, who became associated with great wealth. Croesus is credited with issuing the
Croeseid The Croeseid, anciently ''Kroiseioi stateres'', was a type of coin, either in gold or silver, which was minted in Sardis by the king of Lydia Croesus (561–546 BC) from around 550 BC. Croesus is credited with issuing the first true gold coins wi ...
, the first true
gold coin A gold coin is a coin that is made mostly or entirely of gold. Most gold coins minted since 1800 are 90–92% gold (22karat), while most of today's gold bullion coins are pure gold, such as the Britannia, Canadian Maple Leaf, and American Buf ...
s with a standardised purity for general circulation,
Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
mentioned the innovation made by the Lydians:


Achaemenid coinage

Many ancient bimetallic systems would follow, starting with
Achaemenid coinage The Achaemenid Empire issued coins from 520 BCE–450 BCE to 330 BCE. The Persian daric was the first gold coin which, along with a similar silver coin, the siglos (from grc, σίγλος, he, שֶׁקֶל, '' shékel'') represented the first ...
. From around 515 BCE under Darius I, the minting of Croesids in
Sardis Sardis () or Sardes (; Lydian: 𐤳𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣 ''Sfard''; el, Σάρδεις ''Sardeis''; peo, Sparda; hbo, ספרד ''Sfarad'') was an ancient city at the location of modern ''Sart'' (Sartmahmut before 19 October 2005), near Salihli, ...
was replaced by the minting of Darics and Sigloi. The earliest gold coin of the Achaemenid Empire, the Daric, followed the weight standard of the Croeseid, and is therefore considered to be later and derived from the Croeseid. The weight of the Daric would then be modified through a metrological reform, probably under Darius I. Sardis remained the central mint for the Persian Darics and Sigloi of Achaemenid coinage, and there is no evidence of other mints for the new Achaemenid coins during the whole time of the Achaemenid Empire. Although the gold Daric became an international currency which was found throughout the Ancient world, the circulation of the Sigloi remained very much limited to Asia Minor: important hoards of Sigloi are only found in these areas, and finds of Sigloi beyond are always very limited and marginal compared to Greek coins, even in Achaemenid territories.


Argentina

In 1881, a currency reform in
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
introduced a bimetallic standard, which went into effect in July 1883. Units of gold and silver
peso The peso is the monetary unit of several countries in the Americas, and the Philippines. Originating in the Spanish Empire, the word translates to "weight". In most countries the peso uses the same sign, "$", as many currencies named "dollar" ...
s would be exchanged with paper peso notes at given par values, and fixed exchange rates against key international currencies would thus be established. Unlike many metallic standards, the system was very decentralized: no national monetary authority existed, and all control over convertibility rested with the five banks of issue. This convertibility lasted only 17 months: from December 1884 the banks of issue refused to exchange gold at par for notes. The suspension of convertibility was soon accommodated by the Argentine government, since, having no institutional power over the monetary system, there was little they could do to prevent it.


France

A French law of 1803 granted anyone who brought gold or silver to its mint the right to have it coined at a nominal charge in addition to the official rates of 200 francs per kilogram of 90% silver, or 3100 francs per kilogram of 90% fine gold.Dickson Leavens, Silver Money, Chapter IV Bimetallism in France and the Latin Monetary Union, page 25 This effectively established a bimetallic standard at the rate which had been used for French coinage since 1785, i.e. a relative valuation of gold to silver of 15.5 to 1. In 1803 this ratio was close to the market rate, but for most of the next half century the market rate was above 15.5 to 1. As a consequence, silver powered the French economy and gold was exported. Then the Forty-Niners went to California and the resulting supply of gold reduced its value relative to silver. The market rate fell below 15.5 to 1, and remained below until 1866. Frenchmen responded by exporting silver to India and importing nearly two-fifths of the world's production of gold in the period from 1848 to 1870.Dickson Leavens, op. cit. page 26
Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
introduced five franc gold coins which provided a substitute for the silver five franc coins which were hoarded, but still maintained the formal bimetallism implicit in the 1803 law.


Latin Monetary Union

The national coinages introduced in Belgium (1832), Switzerland (1850), and Italy (1861) were based on France's bimetallic currency. These countries joined France in a treaty signed on 23 December 1865 which established the
Latin Monetary Union The Latin Monetary Union (LMU) was a 19th-century system that unified several European currencies into a single currency that could be used in all member states when most national currencies were still made out of gold and silver. It was establ ...
(LMU). Greece joined the LMU in 1868 and about twenty other countries adhered to its standards. The LMU effectively adopted bimetallism by allowing unlimited free coinage of gold and silver at the 15.5 to 1 rate used in France, but also began to back away from bimetallism by allowing limited issues of low denomination silver coins struck to a lower standard for government accounts.John Porteous, op. cit. page 241 A surplus of silver led the LMU to limit free coinage of silver in 1874 and to end it in 1878, effectively abandoning bimetallism for the gold standard.


United Kingdom

Medieval and early modern England used both gold and silver, at fixed rates, to provide the necessary range of coin denominations; but silver coinage began to be restricted in the 18th century, first informally, and then by an
Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...
in 1774. After the suspension of metal convertibility from 1797 to 1819,
Peel's Bill Peel's Bill, or the 1819 Act for the Resumption of Cash Payments (59 Geo. III, cap. 49), marked the return of the British currency to the gold standard, after the Bank Restriction Act 1797 saw paper money replacing convertibility to gold and silver ...
set the country on the gold standard for the remainder of the century; however advocates of a return to bimetallism did not cease to appear. After the crash of 1825,
William Huskisson William Huskisson (11 March 177015 September 1830) was a British statesman, financier, and Member of Parliament for several constituencies, including Liverpool. He is commonly known as the world's first widely reported railway passenger casu ...
argued strongly within the Government for bimetallism, as a way to increase credit (as well as to ease trade with South America). Similarly, after the banking crisis of 1847, Alexander Baring headed an external bimetallist movement hoping to prevent the undue restriction of the currency. It was, however, only in the last quarter of the century that the movement for bimetallism gathered real strength, drawing on Manchester cotton merchants and City financiers with Far East interests to offer a serious (if ultimately unsuccessful) challenge to the gold standard.


United States

In 1792, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposed
fixing Fixing may refer to: * The present participle of the verb "to fix", an action meaning maintenance, repair, and operations * "fixing someone up" in the context of arranging or finding a social date for someone * "Fixing", craving an addictive drug, ...
the silver to gold exchange rate at 15:1, as well as establishing the
mint MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaA ...
for the public services of
free coinage Free silver was a major economic policy issue in the United States in the late 19th-century. Its advocates were in favor of an expansionary monetary policy featuring the unlimited coinage of silver into money on-demand, as opposed to strict adhe ...
and
currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general ...
regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...
"in order not to abridge the quantity of circulating medium." With its acceptance, Sec.11 of the
Coinage Act of 1792 The Coinage Act of 1792 (also known as the Mint Act; officially: ''An act establishing a mint, and regulating the Coins of the United States''), passed by the United States Congress on April 2, 1792, created the United States dollar as the countr ...
established: "That the proportional value of gold to silver in all coins which shall by law be current as money within the United States, shall be as fifteen to one, according to quantity in weight, of pure gold or pure silver;" the proportion had slipped by
1834 Events January–March * January – The Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad is chartered in Wilmington, North Carolina. * January 1 – Zollverein (Germany): Customs charges are abolished at borders within its member states. * January 3 ...
to sixteen to one. Silver took a further hit with the
Coinage Act of 1853 The Coinage Act of 185310 Stat. 160 was a piece of legislation passed by the United States Congress which lowered the silver content of the silver half dime, dime, quarter dollar, and half dollar, and authorized a three dollar gold piece. Althoug ...
, when nearly all silver coin denominations were debased, effectively turning silver coinage into a fiduciary currency based on its face value rather than its weighted value. Bimetallism was effectively abandoned by the
Coinage Act of 1873 The Coinage Act of 1873 or Mint Act of 1873, was a general revision of laws relating to the Mint of the United States. By ending the right of holders of silver bullion to have it coined into standard silver dollars, while allowing holders of go ...
, but not formally outlawed as legal currency until the early 20th century. The merits of the system were the subject of debate in the late 19th century. If the market forces of supply and demand for either metal caused its bullion value to exceed its nominal currency value, it tends to disappear from circulation by hoarding or melting down.


Political debate

In the United States, bimetallism became a center of political conflict toward the end of the 19th century. During the
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, to finance the war the U.S. switched from bimetallism to a
fiat money Fiat money (from la, fiat, "let it be done") is a type of currency that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender. Throughout history, fiat money was sometim ...
currency. After the war, in 1873, the government passed the Fourth Coinage Act and soon resumption of specie payments began (without the free and unlimited coinage of silver, thus putting the U.S. on a mono-metallic gold standard.) Farmers, debtors, Westerners and others who felt they had benefited from wartime paper money formed the short-lived
Greenback Party The Greenback Party (known successively as the Independent Party, the National Independent Party and the Greenback Labor Party) was an American political party with an anti-monopoly ideology which was active between 1874 and 1889. The party ran ...
to press for cheap paper money backed by silver. The latter element—" free silver"—came increasingly to the fore as the answer to the same interest groups' concerns, and was taken up as a central plank by the
Populist movement Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...
. Proponents of monetary silver, known as the
silverite The Silverites were members of a political movement in the United States in the late-19th century that advocated that silver should continue to be a monetary standard along with gold, as authorized under the Coinage Act of 1792. The Silverite co ...
s, referred back to the Fourth Coinage Act as "The Crime of '73," as it was judged to have inhibited inflation, and favored creditors over debtors. Some reformers, however, like
Henry Demarest Lloyd Henry Demarest Lloyd (May 1, 1847 – September 28, 1903) was a 19th-century American progressive political activist and pioneer muckraking journalist. He is best remembered for his exposés of the Standard Oil Company, which were written before ...
, saw bimetallism as a red herring and feared that free silver was "the
cowbird Cowbirds are birds belonging to the genus ''Molothrus'' in the family Icteridae. They are of New World origin, and are obligate brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species. The genus was introduced by English naturalist Will ...
of the reform movement," likely to push the other eggs out of the nest. Nevertheless the Panic of 1893, a severe nationwide depression, brought the money issue strongly to the fore again. The "silverites" argued that using silver would inflate the money supply and mean more cash for everyone, which they equated with prosperity. The gold advocates said silver would permanently depress the economy, but that sound money produced by a
gold standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the l ...
would restore prosperity. Bimetallism and " Free Silver" were demanded by
William Jennings Bryan William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President ...
who took over leadership of the Democratic Party in 1896, as well as by the Populists, and a faction of Republicans from silver mining regions in the West known as the Silver Republicans who also endorsed Bryan. The Republican Party itself nominated
William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...
on a platform supporting the gold standard which was favored by financial interests on the East Coast. Bryan, the eloquent champion of the cause, gave the famous "Cross of Gold" speech at the National Democratic Convention on July 9, 1896, asserting that "The gold standard has slain tens of thousands." He referred to "a struggle between 'the idle holders of idle capital’ and 'the struggling masses, who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country;’ and, my friends, the question we are to decide is: Upon which side will the Democratic party fight?" At the peroration, he said: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." However, his presidential campaign was ultimately unsuccessful; this can be partially attributed to the discovery of the
cyanide process Gold cyanidation (also known as the cyanide process or the MacArthur-Forrest process) is a hydrometallurgical technique for extracting gold from low-grade ore by converting the gold to a water-soluble coordination complex. It is the most commonl ...
by which gold could be extracted from low-grade ore. This process and the discoveries of large gold deposits in South Africa (
Witwatersrand Gold Rush The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush in 1886 that led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a part of the Mineral Revolution. Origins In the modern day province of Mpumalanga, gold miners in the alluvial mines of ...
of 1887 – with large-scale production starting in 1898) and the Klondike Gold Rush (1896) increased the world gold supply and the subsequent increase in money supply that free coinage of silver was supposed to bring. The McKinley campaign was effective at persuading voters in the business East that poor economic progress and unemployment would be exacerbated by the adoption of the Bryan platform. 1896 saw the election of McKinley. The direct link to gold was abandoned in 1934 in
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
's New Deal program and later the link was broken by
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
when he closed the gold window.


Economic analysis

In 1992, economist
Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...
concluded that abandonment of the bimetallic standard in 1873 led to greater price instability than would have occurred otherwise, and thus resulted in long-term harm to the US economy. His retrospective analysis led him to write that the act of 1873 was "a mistake that had highly adverse consequences".Milton Friedman, ''Money Mischief'' (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992) 78.


See also


Notes


References


Citations


Bibliography


Primary sources

* ''Campaign Text-book of the National Democratic Party'' (1896) by Democratic Party (U.S.) National Committee: this is the Gold Democrats handbook; it strongly opposed Bryan. * Walker, ''International Bimetallism'' (New York, 1896) * Robert Giffen, ''Case against Bimetallism'' (London, 1896) *
Joseph Shield Nicholson Joseph Shield Nicholson, FBA, FRSE (9 November 1850 – 12 May 1927) was an English economist. Life He was born in Wrawby in Lincolnshire on 9 November 1850 the only son of Rev Thomas Nicholson, minister of Banbury, and his wife, Mary Anne G ...
, ''Money and Monetary Problems'' (London, 1897) * Samuel Dana Horton, ''The Silver Pound'' (London, 1887) * Walker, ''Money'' (New York, 1878) *
Francis Amasa Walker Francis Amasa Walker (July 2, 1840 – January 5, 1897) was an American economist, statistician, journalist, educator, academic administrator, and an officer in the Union Army. Walker was born into a prominent Boston family, the son of the econo ...
, ''Money, Trade and Industry'' (New York, 1879) * Elisha Benjamin Andrews, ''An honest Dollar'' (Hartford, 1894) * Helm, ''The Joint Standard'' (London, 1894) *
Frank William Taussig Frank William Taussig (1859–1940) was an American economist who is credited with creating the foundations of modern trade theory. Early life He was born on December 28, 1859, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of William Taussig and Adele Wuerpe ...
, ''The Silver Situation in the United States'' (New York, 1893) * Horace White (writer), ''Money and Banking'' (Boston, 1896) *
James Laurence Laughlin James Laurence Laughlin (April 2, 1850 – November 28, 1933) was an American economist and Professor at Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago, who helped to found the Federal Reserve System and was "one of the ...
, ''History of Bimetallism in the United States'' (New York, 1897) * Langford Lovell Price, ''Money and its Relations to Prices'' (London and New York, 1896) * Utley, ''Bimetallism'' (Los Angeles, 1899) * Roger Q. Mills, '' What shall we do with silver?''  (''
The North American Review The ''North American Review'' (NAR) was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which it was inactive until revived ...
,'' Volume 150, Issue 402, May 1890.)


Secondary sources

* Epstein, David A. (2012). Left, Right, Out: The History of Third Parties in America. Arts and Letters Imperium Publications. . * James A. Barnes, "Myths of the Bryan Campaign," ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'', 34 (December 1947) online in JSTOR * David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito
"Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism, 1896–1900,"
Independent Review 4 (Spring 2000), 555–75. * Bordo, Michael D. "Bimetallism." in ''The New Palgrave Encyclopedia of Money and Finance'' edited by Peter K. Newman, Murray Milgate and John Eatwell. 1992. * Dighe, Ranjit S. ed. ''The Historian's Wizard of Oz: Reading L. Frank Baum's Classic as a Political and Monetary Allegory'' (2002) * Flandreau, Marc, 2004, The Glitter of Gold. France, Bimetallism and the Emergence of the International Gold Standard, 1848–1873, Oxford, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 343 p. * Friedman, Milton, 1990a, "The crime of 1873," ''Journal of Political Economy,'' Vol. 98, No. 6, December, pp. 1159–119
in JSTOR
* Friedman, Milton, 1990b, "Bimetallism revisited," Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 4, No. 4, Fall, pp. 85–104.
in JSTOR
* Friedman, Milton, and Anna J. Schwartz, 1963, ''A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960'' Princeton University Press. . * Jeansonne, Glen. "Goldbugs, Silverites, and Satirists: Caricature and Humor in the Presidential Election of 1896." ''Journal of American Culture'' 1988 11(2): 1–8. * * * Littlefield, Henry M., 1964, "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism," American quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring, pp. 47–58.
Angela Redish, "Bimetallism"
* Rockoff, Hugh, 1990, "The Wizard of Oz as a monetary allegory," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 98, No. 4, August, pp. 739–760
in JSTOR

Velde, Francois R. "Following the Yellow Brick Road: How the United States Adopted the Gold Standard" Economic Perspectives. Volume: 26. Issue: 2. 2002.
*


External links



a series of pages on bimetalism from Micheloud & cie.
Speeches before the 51st Congress (1889–1891)
regarding "free silver," digitized and available on FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research).
Speeches before the 52nd Congress (1891–1893)
regarding "free silver," digitized and available on FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research).
Speeches before the 53rd Congress (1893–1895)
regarding "free silver," digitized and available on FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research).
The French Crime of 1873: An Essay on the Emergence of the International Gold Standard, 1870–1880 (PDF)
{{Authority control Metallism Numismatic terminology People's Party (United States) Monetary economics Gold Silver Currency Economic history of the United States