The Gold Standard Act of the United States was passed in 1900 (approved on March 14) and established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money, stopping bimetallism (which had allowed silver in exchange for gold). It was signed by President William McKinley.
The Act fixed the value of the dollar at 25 8⁄10 grains of gold at 20% purity, equivalent to 23.22 grains (1.5046 grams) of pure gold.
The Gold Standard Act confirmed the nation's commitment to the gold standard by assigning gold a specific dollar value (just over $20.67 per Troy ounce). This took place after McKinley sent a team to Europe to try to figure out a silver agreement with France and Great Britain.
On April 25, 1933 the United States and Canada dropped the gold standard.
Famous quotes containing the words gold, standard and/or act:
“The majority of the men of the North, and of the South and East and West, are not men of principle. If they vote, they do not send men to Congress on errands of humanity; but while their brothers and sisters are being scourged and hung for loving liberty,... it is the mismanagement of wood and iron and stone and gold which concerns them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)