"I'm proud to announce today that the new $10 bill will be the first bill in nearly a century to feature the portrait of a woman," Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew said.
That was the word from Lew last June before the hit Broadway musical "Hamilton" became a hit Broadway musical.
Fast-forward about nine months, and it looks like Alexander Hamilton might not be bumped from the $10 note after all.
Last month, Lew invited "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on a tour of the Treasury. Following that visit, Miranda tweeted, "The secretary just said Ham fans'll be 'very happy' about the new $10."
Bloomberg reports Lew muddied the waters even more during a March 30 interview saying, "Alexander Hamilton is one of my heroes. He's not leaving our money."
In an interview just last week, Lew said, "We're not just talking about one bill; we're talking about the $5, the $10 and the $20. We're not just talking about one picture on one bill; we're talking about using the front and the back of the bill to tell an exciting set of stories."
The suggestion that the redesigned bill might have a woman's portrait on the back has been met with criticism.
A White House petition with the hashtag #NotGoingBack has gained hundreds of signatures in a few days time.
Others see the uncertainty as a chance to go bigger. A group called Women on 20s penned an open letter to the Treasury secretary calling for a woman to take Andrew Jackson's spot on a redesigned $20 bill.
According to CNN, an anonymous source told the outlet that's exactly what Lew plans to do.
But whatever the decision, don't expect to see those new bills floating around anytime soon. A new $10 bill is expected to come out in 2020, and a new $20 bill will likely follow a decade later.
This video includes images from Getty Images.
