Women Whose Image Has Been on Money Around the World

Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi was the first Venezuelan woman to appear on her nation’s currency. She supported her husband, military leader Juan Bautista Arismendi, during Venezuela’s war for independence.

Maria Montessori was an Italian physician – one of that nation’s first female doctors – who became best-known as an educator and innovator, known for her educational method that built on children’s natural desire to learn. There are now thousands of Montessori schools worldwide.

Marie Curie is the only woman to ever win two Nobel Prizes. The Polish-born physicist and chemist who worked in France won for her work in both physics and chemistry.

Martha Washington, wife of the nation’s first president, was the first woman whose image appeared on U.S. currency with the $1 silver certificate, first printed in 1886.

Mary Gilmore, a poet and journalist from Australia, journeyed to Paraguay with other Australians in 1886 to set up a utopian socialist colony. That experiment failed, but back in Australia, she fought for the rights of the disadvantaged, including Aboriginal people and child workers.