Gold Standard Act
The Gold Standard Act of the United States was passed in 1900 and established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money, stopping bimetallism. It was signed by President William McKinley.
The Act made the de facto gold standard in place since the Coinage Act of 1873 a de jure gold standard alongside other major European powers at the time.
The Act fixed the value of the dollar at grains of gold at "nine-tenths fine", equivalent to 23.22 grains of pure gold.
The Gold Standard Act confirmed the United States' commitment to the gold standard by assigning gold a specific dollar value. This took place after McKinley sent a team to Europe to try to make a silver agreement with France and Great Britain.
On April 19, 1933, the United States domestically abandoned the gold standard, whereafter independent states would remain assured of their US dollar holdings by an implied guarantee on their convertibility on demand: the Bretton Woods system formalized this international arrangement at the conclusion of World War II, before the Nixon shock unilaterally cancelled direct international convertibility of the US dollar to gold in 1971.
