Women Workers Leaving the Treasury Department
During the Civil War, the Department of the Treasury hired women workers to fill clerical positions vacated by men who had left to fight with the Union Army. Until that time, clerking was strictly a male occupation. Believing women were particularly well-suited for repetitive, routine tasks, the Secretary of the Treasury assigned them to hand-cut paper money, usually printed in amounts of four bills per sheet. A Union officer observed that it was difficult to live on their salary of $600 a year because room and board cost about $50 per month.
Harpers Weekly, February 18, 1865.