Bureau of Engraving and Printing

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) is the largest producer of security documents in the United States. The BEP prints billions of Federal Reserve Notes for delivery to the Federal Reserve System each year. The BEP also produces miscellaneous security documents for other government agencies.

Faced with the growing costs of preparing for the civil war in 1861, but limited in its ability to raise the required sums of money, Congress resorted to the use of paper money and authorized a general circulation of currency notes. Such financial difficulties, precipitated by military and constitutional crises, led to the emergence of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

The paper notes were essentially Government IOUs, paid out in lieu of traditional coin payments, and were called Demand Notes because they were payable ¡°on demand¡± in coins at certain Treasury facilities.

The U.S. Government had no facility for the production of paper money in August 1861, so a private firm produced the Demand Notes in sheets of four notes. These sheets were then sent to the Treasury Department, where dozens of clerks signed the notes and scores of female workers cut the sheets and trimmed the notes by hand.

A new issue of paper currency, called United States Notes, replaced the Demand Notes the following year. While signatures were engraved on the United States Notes, the work of placing seals on them, as well as trimming and separating, took place in the Treasury.

In 1874, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was officially recognized in congressional legislation with a specific allocation of operating funds for fiscal year 1875.