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Reform in Detail: Attempted Remedies for Rising Prices, 1910–1914

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Inflation Decade, 1910—1920

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Abstract

Remedies for so pervasive a problem as the high cost of living were elusive. Most proposals were necessarily narrow in scope. The middleman made an easy target, but the gap between producers and consumers proved hard to bridge. And who spoke for so inclusive a group as consumers?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Walter E. Weyl, The New Democracy (New York: Macmillan, 1912), 251–53; Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest (1914; Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1961), 54.

  2. 2.

    Meg Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 48; Maud Nathan, The History of an Epoch-Making Movement (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1926), 74, 180, 198–211.

  3. 3.

    Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics, 48; “Utah Federation Meeting,” General Federation Bulletin 9 (Jan. 1912): 230; “Massachusetts State Federation,” ibid. 9 (Sept. 1912): 447.

  4. 4.

    Christine Frederick quoted by Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon, 1989), 270.

  5. 5.

    “Report of Executive Council,” in American Federation of Labor, Proceedings 33 (1913): 13.

  6. 6.

    “Making War on the Middleman and the High Cost of Living,” Current Literature 52 (March 1912): 291; Peter Edward Samson, “The Emergence of a Consumer Interest in America, 1870–1930” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1980), 166.

  7. 7.

    Mary Dudderidge, “The Lesson of the Egg Campaign,” Housewives League Magazine 1 (Feb. 1913): 19–23; Alva Y. Johnson, “The Marketing Clubs of Pittsburgh,” Journal of Home Economics 10 (Jan. 1918): 27–28.

  8. 8.

    “Housewives of Chicago Declare War on Soaring Price of Eggs,” Day Book (Chicago), Nov. 22, 1913; “Egg Prices Fall,” Washington Times, Dec. 10, 1913, 9; “Kansas City Women Lift Egg Boycott,” Omaha Daily Bee, Dec. 17, 1913, 1; “Wholesale Prices Weak,” NYT, Dec. 7, 1913, xx8; “Ends a Produce Trust,” NYT, July 18, 1914, 9.

  9. 9.

    Mrs. F. Spear to Mrs. Houston, Dec. 13, 1913; Secretary to Mrs. F. Spear, Dec. 19, 1913, both in Eggs file, box 82, Records of the Secretary of Agriculture, General Correspondence, 1906–70, RG 16, NARA.

  10. 10.

    Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 266–68; “Housewives Clash at End of Hearing,” NYT, Jan. 5, 1916, 10; “Mrs. Heath Victor in Housewives Report,” NYT, May 9, 1916, 7.

  11. 11.

    Irving Fisher, “A Remedy for the Rising Cost of Living: Standardizing the Dollar,” AER 3, supplement (March 1913): 20–28; Irving Fisher, Memorandum as to the Proposal for an International Commission on the Cost of Living and J.M. Keynes to Fisher, July 14, 1911, with Fisher to William Howard Taft, Jan. 9, 1912, ser. 6, sec. 1893, reel 423, Taft Papers.

  12. 12.

    “Farmers’ Problems,” Farm Journal, [uncertain date], quoted in Stuart William Shulman, “The Origin of the Federal Farm Loan Act: Agenda-Setting in the Progressive Era Print Press” (PhD diss., Univ. of Oregon, 1999), 250–51; “Do They Know What They Do?” Up-to-Date Farming, Dec. 1, 1912, 1.

  13. 13.

    David B. Danbom, The Resisted Revolution: Urban America and the Industrialization of Agriculture, 1900–1930 (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1979), 39; Henry Wallace to W.H. Taft, Mar. 19, 1912, ser. 6, sec. 1893, reel 423, Taft Papers.

  14. 14.

    Danbom, Resisted Revolution, 71; Gladys Lucille Baker, The County Agent (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1939), 15 (quotation); Roy V. Scott, The Reluctant Farmer: The Rise of Agricultural Extension to 1914 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970), 283–87.

  15. 15.

    National Party Platforms, 1840–1968, comp. Kirk H. Porter and Donald Bruce Johnson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970), 171, 177, 185; Shulman, “Origin of the Federal Farm Loan Act,” 439–443.

  16. 16.

    Melvin I. Urofsky, Louis D. Brandeis: A Life (New York: Pantheon, 2009), 287, 291 (Brandeis quoted), 293, 804n; “Roads Could Save $1000,000 a Day,” NYT, Nov. 22, 1910, 6.

  17. 17.

    C. Bertrand Thompson, “The Literature of Scientific Management,” QJE 28 (1914): 514.

  18. 18.

    Martin J. Schiesl, The Politics of Efficiency: Municipal Administration and Reform in America, 1800–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 16, 112–120, 163–69; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Financial Statistics of Cities Having a Population of Over 30,000, 1915 (GPO, 1916), 60; Samuel Haber, Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, 1890–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), x, 53–63; Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 15, 67–79, 114–18, 136–38.

  19. 19.

    Jan Whitaker, Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006), 16, 33–34, 203–5; Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics, 15 (quotation), 20; Susan Porter Benson, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890–1940 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 77–99.

  20. 20.

    William I. Walsh, The Rise and Decline of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1986), 25–30; Godfrey M. Lebhar, Chain Stores in America, 1859–1962, 3rd ed. (New York: Chain Store Publishing, 1963), 31; “Price Maintenance—Discussion,” AER 6, supp. (Mar. 1916): 206.

  21. 21.

    Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 228, 268–284; Walsh, Rise and Decline, 32.

  22. 22.

    Thomas K. McCraw, Prophets of Regulation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), 106–7; Marc Levinson, The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011), 67; H.R. Tosdal, “Price Maintenance,” AER 8 (March 1918): 28n, 35n, 44; Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics, 34, 37.

  23. 23.

    Walter E. Clark, The Cost of Living (Chicago: McClurg, 1915), 121; Alice M. Holden, “Current Municipal Affairs,” American Political Science Review 8 (Feb. 1914): 77–78.

  24. 24.

    Daniel T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 326–27; E.M. Tousley, “What Cooperative Societies May Accomplish in Lowering Food Distribution Costs,” Annals 50 (Nov. 1913): 232–38; Samson, “Emergence,” 144–48; G.A. Nahstoll, memorandum for Mr. Brand, March 27, 1915, Nahstoll file, box 79, Numerical General Correspondence, 1912–1922, RBurMar; L.D.H. Weld, The Marketing of Farm Products (1916; New York: Macmillan, 1924), 413–449.

  25. 25.

    Clyde Lyndon King, “Can the Cost of Distributing Food Products Be Reduced?” Annals 48 (July 1913): 199–223; Weld, Marketing, 176–78, 221.

  26. 26.

    Clyde Lyndon King, Lower Living Costs in Cities: A Constructive Programme for Urban Efficiency (New York: Appleton, 1915), 114; “Making War on the Middleman,” 289–92; “How the Housewives’ Agitation for Public Markets Is Bearing Fruit,” Housewives League Magazine 1 (April 1913): 20–22.

  27. 27.

    Press releases, July 18, Aug. 17, 1914, with Frederick L. Siddons to Joseph Tumulty, Sept. 10, 1914, case file 60, reel 192, WWPLC (first quotation); “Foolish Advisers,” Detroit Free Press, July 21, 1914, with ibid.; Mrs. Julian Heath, “Rise of the Public Market,” Housewives League Magazine 1 (Jan. 1913): 7 (2nd quotation), 8; Royal Meeker, “Market Distribution,” AER 5; supp. (1915): 123; L.D.H. Weld, “Market Distribution,” ibid., 138; Weld, Marketing, 391.

  28. 28.

    J.W. Sullivan, Markets for the People: The Consumer’s Part (New York: Macmillan, 1913), 5, 69–70; Daniel M. Bluestone, “‘The Pushcart Evil’: Peddlers, Merchants, and New York City’s Streets, 1890–1940,” Journal of Urban History 18 (Nov. 1991): 71–84; Tracey Deutsch, Building a Housewife’s Paradise: Gender, Politics, and American Grocery Stores in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 29, 31.

  29. 29.

    Wells A. Sherman, Merchandising Fruits and Vegetables: A New Billion Dollar Industry (New York: McGraw Hill, 1930), 154–162; [Brand], Memorandum for the Secretary [David Houston], Oct. 24, 1913, box 1, Numerical General Correspondence, 1912–22, RBurMar (quotation); Charles Brand, memorandum for F.R. Harrison, Sept. 18, 1915, box 2, in ibid.

  30. 30.

    Samson, “Emergence,” 137–144.

  31. 31.

    Richard B. Kielbowitz, “Rural Ambivalence Toward Mass Society: Evidence from the U.S. Postal Service Debates,” Rural History 5; 1 (1994): 82, 87–89; Wayne E. Fuller, RFD: The Changing Face of Rural America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964), 217–236; LD, Jan. 18, 1913, 118, quoted in Fuller, RFD, 230.

  32. 32.

    Guy Fitzpatrick, “Final Report on Work Conducted at Atlanta, Georgia, . . . Aug. 13, 1914,” Fitzpatrick file, box 119, Numerical General Correspondence, 1912–22, RBurMar.

  33. 33.

    Weld, Marketing, 398–402; Lewis B. Flohr to Charles Brand, Dec. 6, 1915 (first quotation), Flohr file, box 57, Numerical General Correspondence, 1912–22, RBurMar; Fitzpatrick, “Final Report”; “Will the Parcel Post Reduce the Cost of Living?” Journal of Home Economics 7 (Feb. 1915): 81; Meeker, “Market Distribution,” 124 (3rd quotation).

  34. 34.

    “Inaugural Address,” Jan. 17, 1911, WWPLink, 22: 352–53; Lorian P. Jefferson, “Cold Storage,” American Political Science Review 5 (1911): 573; George K. Holmes, Cold Storage and Prices, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Statistics, Bulletin 101 (GPO, 1913), 1–9, 20, 72; Weld, Marketing, 163–66; “Cold Storage Bill Passes,” NYT, June 1, 1911, 4; Elizabeth McQuat, “Our Legislative Department,” Housewives League Magazine 2 (Aug. 1913): 32.

  35. 35.

    Timothy Messer-Kruse, “The Crusade for Honest Weight: The Origins of an Overlooked Progressive Movement,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 5 (2006): 241–286 (quotation 263); Louis A. Fischer, “Recent Developments in Weights and Measures in the United States,” Popular Science Monthly 84 (1914): 346–47; Fritz Reichmann, “Weights and Measures,” Conquest Magazine, May 1910, 11–12; Fritz Reichmann, “Savings through Proper Supervision of Weights, Measures, and Standards,” Annals 50 (Nov. 1913): 98.

  36. 36.

    Reichmann, “Savings,” 98–99; Samson, “Emergence,” 104; Fischer, “Recent Developments,” 349–367 (quotation 358); “Supt. Reichmann’s Services,” NYT, Mar. 28, 1914, 12.

  37. 37.

    Fischer, “Recent Developments,” 368; U.S. Statutes at Large 37 (1913): 732 (quotation); Amendment of Pure Food and Drugs Act, 62d Cong., 3d sess., Senate Report 1216 (GPO, 1913), 1–68; CR, Feb. 28, 1913, 4287–4303.

  38. 38.

    Mary Dudderidge, “Embattled Housewives,” Independent 73 (Nov. 28, 1912): 1230.

  39. 39.

    “How One May Feast and Starve,” LD 49 (Dec. 19, 1914): 1220; “The Cost of Living,” Independent 68 (1910): 803; Isabel Bevier, “Dietetic Standards for These Various Households,” NEA, Proceedings 50 (1912): 978.

  40. 40.

    Lynn R. Edminster, The Cattle Industry and the Tariff (New York: Macmillan, 1926), 43.

  41. 41.

    Department of Commerce and Labor, Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food (GPO, 1904), 81; Ruth Dupré, “‘If It’s Yellow, It Must Be Butter’: Margarine Regulation in North America since 1886,” Journal of Economic History 59 (1999): 355–59; “Delay Oleo Bill Till Fall,” NYT, Apr. 3, 1912, 14; Oleomargarine and the High Cost of Living (Washington, D.C.: Sudworth Co., [1913]), 24–58, in Oleomargarine file, box 91, Records of the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, General Correspondence, RG 16, NARA.

  42. 42.

    Michael B. Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York: Basic Books, 1986), 128–29; U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, The Development of Minimum-Wage Laws in the United States, 1912 to 1927, Bulletin 61 (GPO, 1928), 3, 132–33, 155. See below, chapters 11 and 15.

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    David I. Macleod

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Macleod, D.I. (2024). Reform in Detail: Attempted Remedies for Rising Prices, 1910–1914. In: Inflation Decade, 1910—1920. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55393-6_5

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