Why do famous people deserve to be on money?

Answer 1

That is a matter of opinion and has been the matter of public debate for a very long time. It used to be, in ancient Greece and in the Roman Republic that their coins featured the gods they worshiped, not an actual person. However, to spread influence, emperors started minting coins with their own likeness on them. Since most of the world was influenced by the Roman Empire, they continued their tradition and put their own leaders on their coins. When the US was founded, the founding fathers did not want to be like Europe and put a living person's image on their coinage, instead they used a personification of Liberty. The first person to be on a (circulating) US coin was Abraham Lincoln in 1909, and by 1948, every denomination of US coin featured a historical person. Even today you will find some people (including me) who believe that the US shouldn't put people on its coinage because unlike most countries which were formed by a common race, a common ancestor or a common leader, the US was formed from a common ideal, the ideal of Liberty.