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 standard act, gold, standard and/or act:
“We don’t want bores in the theatre. We don’t want standardised acting, standard actors with standard-shaped legs. Acting needs everybody, cripples, dwarfs and people with noses so long. Give us something that is different.”
—Dame Sybil Thorndike (1882–1976)
“After reading Howitt’s account of the Australian gold-diggings one evening,... I asked myself why I might not be washing some gold daily, though it were only the finest particles,—why I might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine.... At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary and narrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God’s will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“All the world is full of inscape and chance left free to act falls into an order as well as purpose.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)