In which year did the United States government begin printing paper money? Was it closer to 1790, 1820, or 1860?

The immense financial pressures of the Civil War forced a major change in American currency. To fund the war effort, the U.S. government passed legislation in 1861 authorizing the printing of the first federally-issued paper money. These non-interest-bearing notes were soon nicknamed "Greenbacks" because of the distinctive green ink used on their reverse side. This action marked the beginning of a unified national currency controlled by the federal government, placing the correct time frame firmly in the 1860s.

Prior to this, the nation's financial system was a chaotic and fragmented landscape. From the 1790s through the early 1860s, there was no single national paper currency. Instead, thousands of individual state-chartered banks printed their own unique bank notes. This system, often called the Free Banking Era, was unreliable. The value of a note depended entirely on the reputation and solvency of the bank that issued it, and counterfeiting was rampant. A note from a bank in Ohio might be worthless by the time you traveled to Pennsylvania.

The National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864 brought this era to a close. The legislation created a system of national banks and, crucially, imposed a tax on the notes issued by state banks. This tax made the state-chartered bank notes unprofitable, effectively pushing them out of circulation and cementing the role of the federal "Greenback" as the dominant paper currency in the United States.