Plague Money: How the Federal Reserve Managed Currency During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic and What Collectors Can Find Today

Currency in the Age of Influenza

In the autumn of 1918, American cities were shutting down. Philadelphia closed its schools, churches, and theaters. San Francisco made mask-wearing compulsory in public. Bodies piled up faster than coffins could be built. And somewhere in the middle of this catastrophe, the Federal Reserve System, barely five years old, had to keep American commerce running. That meant printing, distributing, and yes, destroying paper money at rates that the young central banking system had never anticipated.

The intersection of the 1918 influenza pandemic and United States currency history is rarely discussed in numismatic circles, yet it produced measurable effects on print runs, destruction protocols, and the survival rates of notes from several key series. For collectors today, understanding what happened to American paper money between 1917 and 1919 adds a remarkable layer of context to any Federal Reserve Note or Federal Reserve Bank Note from that era sitting in your collection.

The Federal Reserve at Five Years Old: An Institution Under Pressure

When the influenza pandemic arrived in force during the summer and fall of 1918, the Federal Reserve System was still an adolescent institution. The Federal Reserve Act had been signed on December 23, 1913, and the twelve regional banks opened their doors on November 16, 1914. The system had already been stress-tested by World War I financing demands, the Liberty Loan drives, and the economic dislocations of wartime. The pandemic arrived as yet another extraordinary challenge layered on top of an already strained apparatus.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which produced all Federal Reserve currency, was operating at wartime capacity through 1918. The BEP employed roughly 4,300 workers at its Washington, D.C., facility during this period, and illness swept through that workforce just as it did every other American institution that autumn. BEP records indicate that absenteeism during October 1918 reached levels that required mandatory overtime from healthy workers, while print schedules were compressed to meet Federal Reserve requisitions.

Why Pandemics Affect Paper Money Supply

It seems counterintuitive at first: a pandemic that kills people and closes businesses should reduce the demand for currency. In practice, several forces drove demand upward during the 1918 crisis. First, there was hoarding. Fear of bank closures, a rational response given the bank panic memories of 1907 that were only a decade old, pushed ordinary Americans to pull cash out of accounts and hold it at home. Second, the informal economy expanded rapidly. When institutions closed, peer-to-peer cash transactions replaced bank-intermediated commerce. Third, certain industries, particularly funeral services, medical supply, and food distribution, experienced explosive cash-flow demands.

Federal Reserve Board records from late 1918 and early 1919 document increased requisitions from several district banks, notably the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, both of which served regions among the hardest hit by the pandemic. The Philadelphia district, which carries the letter D and was assigned serial number prefix D on Federal Reserve Notes, processed unusually high volumes of currency issuance in October and November 1918.

The Destruction Side of the Equation

Here is where the pandemic’s influence on surviving currency becomes most tangible to collectors. The Federal Reserve System operated under standing Treasury guidelines that required the destruction of worn and unfit notes. Under normal circumstances, a note entering circulation might survive two to three years before being returned to a Federal Reserve Bank and destroyed. During 1918, public health officials and some regional Federal Reserve officials became genuinely concerned about the role of paper currency in disease transmission.

The Public Health Service had been issuing warnings about contaminated surfaces since early 1918, and several prominent physicians, including some who testified before state health boards, argued that handled paper money posed a transmission risk. While the scientific consensus today recognizes that influenza spreads primarily through respiratory droplets rather than fomite contact, the 1918 understanding was murkier. Some Federal Reserve districts responded by accelerating their destruction of returned notes, pulling currency out of circulation sooner than the standard wear thresholds required.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, serving the Twelfth District (L prefix), documented an internal policy discussion in late 1918 about expedited destruction of returned currency, though it is unclear how consistently this was enforced. The practical result, for collectors, is that certain 1914-series notes from heavily affected districts have lower survival rates in circulated grades than print volumes alone would predict.

The Series 1918 Federal Reserve Bank Notes: A Pandemic-Era Issue

No discussion of 1918-era currency is complete without addressing the Federal Reserve Bank Notes of Series 1918, a distinct and often misunderstood type. These are not Federal Reserve Notes. Federal Reserve Bank Notes were obligations of the individual Federal Reserve Banks rather than of the United States government, secured by United States bonds deposited with the Treasurer. They were issued under the Pittman Act provisions and related wartime legislation to address specific currency demands.

The Series 1918 Federal Reserve Bank Notes were printed in denominations of $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. The $1 and $2 denominations are particularly interesting to collectors because they are the only Federal Reserve Bank Notes in those face values, and they were printed in very large quantities during 1918 and 1919 specifically to meet wartime and pandemic-era cash demand. The one-dollar Federal Reserve Bank Note from Series 1918 carries a blue seal and features a portrait of George Washington. The two-dollar note features Thomas Jefferson.

These notes carry two signature combinations reflecting the officials in office during production. The Teehee-Burke combination (Elliott Teehee, Register; William G. McAdoo succeeded by Carter Glass as Secretary, though the note signatures are those of the Register and Treasurer, not the Secretary) dominated early production. The Elliott-Burke combination, reflecting John Burke’s continued service as Treasurer paired with William Elliott as Register after Teehee left office in late 1919, appears on later printings. For notes from the pandemic-peak printing windows, Teehee-Burke signed examples from the larger Federal Reserve Bank districts are the ones most directly connected to the 1918 crisis.

The Friedberg catalog numbers most relevant here are Fr. 708 through Fr. 746 for the Series 1918 Federal Reserve Bank Notes across all twelve districts and both major signature combinations. The Fr. 708 (one dollar, Boston, Teehee-Burke) through Fr. 711 (one dollar, Boston, Elliott-Burke) series illustrates how print runs varied by district. Boston’s $1 notes had a combined Teehee-Burke and Elliott-Burke production estimated in excess of 8 million notes, while some smaller districts like Minneapolis produced considerably fewer, making certain district-signature pairings legitimately scarce today.

Printing Volumes: What the Numbers Tell Us

Annual Report data from the Federal Reserve Board and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing allow us to sketch the printing picture for fiscal years 1918 and 1919 (the federal fiscal year then ran July 1 to June 30). In fiscal year 1918, the BEP delivered approximately 780 million notes of all types to the Federal Reserve System and the Treasury. In fiscal year 1919, that figure climbed to approximately 1.2 billion notes, a jump of more than 50 percent. This increase reflected several compounding demands: war financing, the pandemic-driven cash hoarding described above, and the need to replace the accelerated destruction volumes coming back from Federal Reserve Banks.

The breakdown by denomination shows that small-denomination production, particularly the $1 and $5 notes, grew most dramatically. The $1 Federal Reserve Bank Notes of Series 1918 accounted for a significant share of fiscal 1919 production precisely because these small notes were the workhorses of the informal cash economy that expanded during the pandemic. High-denomination Federal Reserve Notes, the $50 and $100 face values in Series 1914, continued to be produced in more modest numbers as they served commercial banking operations rather than street-level transactions.

What Survived: A Collector’s Inventory of the Era

For practical collecting purposes, the pandemic era left several categories of survivors worth seeking. First, there are the Series 1914 Federal Reserve Notes in the large-size format, spanning denominations from $5 through $100. Notes with blue seal (the later, more common variety following the initial red seal issue) and Teehee-Burke signatures represent pandemic-period production. The $5 blue seal notes (Fr. 851 through Fr. 890 across twelve districts and two signature pairs) are the most commonly encountered, with collector values in Fine condition typically ranging from $150 to $500 depending on district, while notes from smaller districts like Richmond (E prefix) or Minneapolis (I prefix) bring stronger premiums.

Second, and perhaps most historically evocative, are the Series 1918 Federal Reserve Bank Notes in the one and two dollar denominations. These notes, produced in enormous quantities to meet the very cash demands the pandemic helped create, are widely available in circulated grades at accessible price points. A collector can assemble a complete set of all twelve districts in the $1 denomination for a few thousand dollars if patient, or focus on a single district for a more focused and affordable entry. High-grade (PMG 64 or 65 EPQ) examples of the common districts can fetch $400 to $1,500 at major auction, while gem examples from rarer districts have realized $5,000 or more.

Third, do not overlook the National Currency that was simultaneously circulating during this period. National Bank Notes with Series 1902 dating and signatures from bank officers active in 1918 often bear the quiet marks of heavy pandemic-era use. Notes from banks in Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston that were redeemed in high numbers during 1918 and 1919 have correspondingly thinner surviving populations in problem-free grades.

Reading the Notes: How to Identify Pandemic-Era Survivors

Authentication and attribution of pandemic-era notes requires attention to several details. On Series 1914 Federal Reserve Notes, confirm the blue Treasury seal (red seal examples predate the pandemic-era bulk production). Check the district letter and number in all four corners of the face: A-1 Boston, B-2 New York, C-3 Philadelphia, D-4 Cleveland (note that modern district assignments differ from the sometimes-confused popular memory), E-5 Richmond, F-6 Atlanta, G-7 Chicago, H-8 St. Louis, I-9 Minneapolis, J-10 Kansas City, K-11 Dallas, L-12 San Francisco. Verify the signature pair on the face of the note: Teehee-Burke notes will show Elliott Teehee’s signature on the left (as Register of the Treasury) and John Burke’s on the right (as Treasurer of the United States).

On the Series 1918 Federal Reserve Bank Notes, look for the distinctive feature that sets them apart from Federal Reserve Notes: the obligation statement reads as a promise of the individual Federal Reserve Bank rather than of the United States, and the issuing bank’s name appears prominently on the face. The serial numbers on these notes typically begin with a letter prefix identifying the district, followed by numerals, and conclude with a letter suffix. Notes with very low serial numbers (under 1000) from any district command significant premium and may represent early-run production from the pandemic period itself.

Conclusion: History You Can Hold

The 1918 influenza pandemic shaped American paper money in ways that are still visible in the marketplace today. The accelerated destruction of circulated notes in hard-hit districts, the extraordinary print runs demanded by a hoarding public and disrupted economy, and the specific signature combinations and series produced during those months all left fingerprints that careful collectors can read. Whether you are drawn to the widely available and historically resonant one-dollar Federal Reserve Bank Notes of Series 1918 or to the scarcer large-size Federal Reserve Notes from pandemic-peak districts, you are handling currency that moved through one of history’s most turbulent episodes. That context does not show up in a grade or a catalog number, but it is as real as the paper itself.