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Specie Resumption Takes Effect
- When
- 1879-01-01
- Where
- United States
On January 1, 1879, the Specie Resumption Act mandated the redemption of United States Notes in gold, restoring parity with specie for the first time since 1861.
Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman possessed sufficient specie to meet redemption demands. The public voluntarily accepted greenbacks as part of the circulating medium once parity was achieved. This event marked the end of the Civil War-era suspension of specie payments and the restoration of the gold standard.
Sources
- Specie Payment Resumption Act Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-11
- United States Note Wikipedia, revision of 2026-03-18
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.