Pop culture helped keep Hamilton on $10 bill

The plan started out simple but then pop culture and social media got involved.

Last summer, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew wanted the public’s input on redesigning the $10 bill, asking which woman’s image should replace Alexander Hamilton's.

The answers came like a tidal wave, long discussions about how women should be represented on money and which figures should still be honored on the currency.

And the two in question, Andrew Jackson and Hamilton, have had an interesting past few years.

Pop culture, and a ridiculously unstoppable Broadway musical, made Hamilton cool, while social media groups shed light on Jackson’s more unsavory exploits, such as his involvement with the Trail of Tears.

Lew had a problem. He wanted a woman on the currency but now Hamilton was too popular to cut. So he got creative.

The $10 now will have noted figures from the women’s suffrage movement on the back, while keeping Hamilton on the front. Jackson gets booted to the back of the $20 bill, and Harriet Tubman gets the front. Even the $5 bill will get a face-lift. And Lew is trying to get all three notes in circulation as quickly as possible.

Sometimes good things happen unexpectedly when social media and pop culture join in.

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 6:09 PM with the headline "Pop culture helped keep Hamilton on $10 bill."