A persistent folk etymology claims the dollar sign was designed intentionally by early American patriots as a monogram combining the letters "U" and "S" for United States, with the bottom curve of the "U" omitted over the "S." This theory was popularized by novelist Ayn Rand in her 1957 book Atlas Shrugged, where characters revere the mark as a symbol of pure American enterprise and individual achievement.
The archival record dismantles the claim entirely.
Manuscripts containing the single and double-slashed dollar sign appear in mercantile papers dating back to the late 1760s and early 1770s, years before the phrase "United States" existed as an operational entity. When the Continental Congress formally agreed on the name "United States of America" in 1776, the abbreviation commonly in use was "U.S.A.," not "U.S." Scribes did not invent an ideogram out of patriotic national pride; they inherited a commercial shortcut derived from Spain's sprawling colonial machinery.
