Educational Series silver certificate

The Educational Series refers to a group of three United States silver certificates produced in 1896 by the U.S. Treasury. Production began after Claude M. Johnson, chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, directed that new currency designs be prepared. The series takes its name from the title of the allegorical vignette appearing on the one-dollar note, History Instructing Youth. Although higher denominations of ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, five hundred, and one thousand dollars were planned, only the one-, two-, and five-dollar denominations were ever completed and issued before the series was abandoned and replaced by the Series of 1899.

The notes are defined by complex allegorical compositions across the obverse and dual historical portraits on the reverse, with female allegorical figures appearing on every denomination. The one-dollar note displays History Instructing Youth on the front, designed by Will Hicok Low and engraved by Charles Schlecht, paired with reverse portraits of George and Martha Washington. The two-dollar note depicts Science presenting steam and electricity to Commerce and Manufacture, designed by E. H. Blashfield and engraved by G. F. C. Smillie and Charles Schlecht, with Robert Fulton and Samuel F. B. Morse portrayed on the reverse.

The five-dollar note features the central vignette Electricity as the Dominant Force in the World, designed by Walter Shirlaw and engraved by G. F. C. Smillie, with portraits of Ulysses S. Grant and Phillip Sheridan on the back. The exposed breasts of the female allegorical figures on the five-dollar note caused minor controversy among members of Boston society, leading some contemporary bankers to reject the notes during transactions and reputedly giving rise to the phrase "banned in Boston".