Women on dollars: Campaign underway to put Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks or Wilma Mankiller on US $20 bill

Campaigners say it is important for women to be represented on the currency

One of four women who made powerful and lasting contributions to the US could find their face front and central on the $20 bill, if campaigners get their way.

The group Women on 20s launched a campaign to have the pioneering women recognised and asked the public to vote on who they believed should be honoured with their face being represented on the bill. They will then lobby the government to take up their suggestion.

“Here we are in the 21st Century and we have no women on our currency,” the group's executive director, Susan Ades Stone, told The Independent.

The group initially came up with 15 names of women celebrated over the years for their contributions to politics, civil rights and the arts. Over a period of five weeks, more than 265,000 people cast their vote online and the long-list was narrowed down to a short list of just four.

More than 60,000 have already been cast select a winner and replace the image of Andrew Jackson, the seventh American president and whose face currently adorns the note.

Ms Stone said it was a relatively simple process for the authorities to proceed and put the winner’s face on a $20. The group is hoping to have the bill approved by the year 2020, which marks the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote.

“Actually the Secretary of the Treasury has it under his own power,” she said. “He can pick up the phone to make it happen."

The four finalists are:

Eleanor Roosevelt, first US president’s wife to take an activist’s role

Harriet Tubman, abolitionist who led slaves to freedom

A mock-up of Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill

Rosa Parks, Civil rights who refused to give up her seat on the bus

Wilma Mankiller - first elected female chief of Native American nation