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History of the Treasury
Secretaries of the Treasury
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George S. Boutwell
(1869 - 1873)
George S. Boutwell (1818-1905) had spent a long career
in public service, including tours of duty as the first Commissioner of
Internal Revenue (1862-1863) and as a Congressman (1863-1869), before being
appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant as Secretary of the Treasury in 1869. His
chief objectives as Secretary were to improve the organization of the Department
and to continue reducing the national debt. Boutwell set up a system for
the manufacture of money which made it easier to detect counterfeit currency
and he reorganized the Mint, which became part of the Treasury Department
in 1873 after seventy-four years as an independent agency. He also instituted
an efficient system of bookkeeping and accounting for the customs houses.
Shortly after his appointment, Boutwell had to rise
to the challenge of the infamous "Black Friday," September 23, 1869, when
speculators on Wall Street tried to corner the gold market. He successfully
blocked their scheme by releasing great quantities of Treasury gold and
thereby flooding the market. Boutwell left Treasury in 1873 to return
to the Senate.
About the Artist
Born in Boston in 1859, George Chickering Munzig trained at the Brimmer Art School in Boston before going to Paris to study at the Académie Julian under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebre. He returned to his birthplace in 1872 to portray many prominent Bostonians, specializing in crayon drawings and later in oils. He was a member of the Boston Art Club and a founder and first president of the Tavern Club, a men's eating club on Park Square. Although George S. Boutwell was alive when this portrait was painted around 1880, stylistically considered it appears to have been copied from a photograph.
Office of the Curator
All rights reserved. 2001
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