Printing War Bonds in the US Treasury Attic

I have been reading, The Bonds of War: How Civil War Financial Agents Sold the World on the Union, by David K. Thomson, which explains how the Union financed the Civil War.

This reminded me of a Matthew Brady photograph of the attic of the Treasury Building in downtown Washington, DC, from probably late 1863. It shows the start of US Government security printing.

Presses were brought into what was basically an office building during the Civil War to print war bonds for the Union. These presses would have been producing Five-Twenty Bonds. These bonds paid 6% interest and were callable in 5 years, maturing in 20 (hence the name 5-20).

The Gov't had started printing its own bonds for the first time in US history. It took this step because the banknote companies (mainly in New York) were overcharging for production and were failing to deliver bonds on schedule. This threatened the funding of the war effort.

Bond and, later, banknote production soon took over every spare corner of the Treasury Building. Imagine being a clerk trying to balance the books while the noise, smell, and vibration of printing operations were going on around you. Printing operations didn't move out until 1880.