Adoption of the US Dollar
- When
- 1785
- Where
- Philadelphia
- Episodes
- 1
The Continental Congress resolved on July 6, 1785, that the United States money unit would be the dollar, containing 375.64 grains of fine silver. This decision established a decimal currency system, defining sub-units as mills, cents, and dimes, which was further clarified in August 1786.
Episodes
Background and detail
Resolution. On July 6, 1785, the Continental Congress resolved that the money unit of the United States, the dollar, would contain 375.64 grains of fine silver. This resolution established the dollar as the base unit for the United States currency system.
Decimal System. The Continental Congress prescribed a decimal system of units to go with the unit dollar. The sub-units were defined as the mill, or one-thousandth of a dollar; the cent, or one-hundredth of a dollar; and the disme or dime, or one-tenth of a dollar.
People involved
- Continental Congress · Legislative body
Sources
- United States dollar Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-30
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.