Overview

This book shows how inflation can disrupt politics and society. With no recent precedent, mild inflation spurred mass protests, myriad remedial schemes, and partisan political reversals between 1910 and 1914. Then wartime demand and inflationary fiscal policy doubled consumer prices from 1915 to 1920, triggering waves of strikes, food riots by immigrant housewives, class conflict, and elite fears of revolution. Middle-class households resented falling real incomes. Even more than today, food prices dominated consumer concerns. Yet farmers wanted high commodity prices. Accordingly, both sides blamed and attacked meatpackers, wholesalers, and retailers. Then as now, inflation hurt whichever party held the White House. Fumbling responses by Wilson’s administration and the Federal Reserve led to hesitant price controls, punitive raids and prosecutions, and a now-familiar fallback—high interest rates in 1920 and subsequent recession. An epilogue traces continuing popular and politicalresponses to changes in the consumer price index down to 2020. 

Full Product Details

Author:   David I. Macleod
Publisher:   Springer International Publishing AG
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
Edition:   1st ed. 2024
ISBN:  

9783031553929

ISBN 10:   3031553926
Pages:   335
Publication Date:   30 April 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Prelude: Price Deflation, 1865–1897.- Chapter 3. Prices Begin a Slow Rise, 1897–1909.- Chapter 4. Concern Intensifies in 1910: What or Whom to Blame?.- Chapter 5. Reform in Detail: Attempted Remedies for Rising Prices, 1910–1914.- Chapter 6. Food Prices, Democratic Political Gains, and Legislation, 1911–1914.- Chapter 7. The High Cost of Living: Respite and Upsurge, 1915 to Early 1917.- Chapter 8. The Inflation Muddle, 1915 to June 1917.- Chapter 9. War Finance and Prices.- Chapter 10. One Commodity at a Time: Wartime Attempts to Restrain Prices and Profiteering.- Chapter 11. Getting By: Earners Confront Changing Real Incomes.- Chapter 12. Postwar: Brief Respite and Resurgent High Cost of Living, 1919–1920.- Chapter 13. Confronting High Prices: Pursuing Profiteering and Systemic Causes, 1919–1920.- Chapter 14. Inflation vs. Deflation, 1920: Anxiety, Indecision, Reversal, and Electoral Upheaval.- Chapter 15. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Cost-of-Living Index.- Chapter 16. Deflation’s Consequences: Winners, Losers, and a Brief New Normalcy.- Chapter 17. Epilogue: 1920s to Present.- Chapter 18. Conclusion.

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Author Information

David I. Macleod is Professor Emeritus of History at Central Michigan University, where he taught American social and political history. His publications include Building Character in the American Boy: The Boy Scouts, YMCA, and Their Forerunners, 1870-1920 and The Age of the Child: Children in America, 1890-1920.

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