The Register of the Treasury was an officer of the United States Treasury Department. The Register's duties included filing the accounting records of the government, transferring and cancelling federal debt securities, and filing the certificates of U.S.-registered ships.
The signature of the Register of the Treasury was found on almost all United States currency until 1923, along with that of the Treasurer of the United States. Four of the five African Americans whose signatures have appeared on U.S. currency were Registers of the Treasury (Blanche K. Bruce, Judson W. Lyons, William T. Vernon and James C. Napier).[1][2][3]
After Woodrow Wilson appointed an African-American, Adam E. Patterson, for the position in 1917, Southern Senators (including Hoke Smith, James K. Vardaman, and Ben Tillman) expressed their opposition to Patterson on the grounds of his race, also saying they opposed any African-American for an office that would put them above Caucasian women. Patterson quickly withdrew his name, and Wilson appointed Gabe E. Parker, the first white man to hold the position in fifteen years, to the Register of the Treasury, leaving African-Americans dismayed.[4]
In 1919, the office of the Register became the Public Debt Service which, in 1940, became the Bureau of the Public Debt.
The Treasury had eighteen Registers between 1861 and 1933.[5]
| Name | Dates served | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lucius E. Chittenden | April 17, 1861 – August 10, 1864 | ||
| S. B. Colby | August 11, 1864 – September 21, 1867 | ||
| Noah L. Jeffries | October 5, 1867 – March 15, 1869 | ||
| John Allison | April 3, 1869 – March 23, 1878 | ||
| Glenni William Scofield | April 1, 1878 – May 20, 1881 | ||
| Blanche Kelso Bruce | May 21, 1881 – June 5, 1885 | ||
| William Starke Rosecrans | June 8, 1885 – June 19, 1893 | ||
| James Fount Tillman | July 1, 1893 – December 2, 1897 | ||
| Blanche Kelso Bruce | December 3, 1897 – March 17, 1898 | ||
| Judson Whitlocke Lyons | April 7, 1898 – April 1, 1906 | ||
| William Tecumseh Vernon | June 11, 1906 – March 14, 1911 | ||
| James Carroll Napier | March 15, 1911 – September 30, 1913 | ||
| Gabe E. Parker | October 1, 1913 – December 31, 1914 | ||
| Houston Benge Teehee | March 24, 1915 – November 20, 1919 | ||
| William S. Elliott | November 21, 1919 – January 24, 1922 | ||
| Harley V. Speelman | January 25, 1922 – September 30, 1927 | ||
| Walter Orr Woods | October 1, 1927 – January 17, 1929 | ||
| Edward E. Jones | January 22, 1929 – May 31, 1933 | ||
Senator Bruce was also the first black man to preside over the Senate and the first whose signature appeared on all the nation's paper currency (as Register of the Treasury starting on May 18, 1881)
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