Inflation Chart Since The Founding of the US

From The Wall Street Journal, Real Time Economics, "Gold Standard Didn’t Really Tame Inflation, New Research Says" by Michael S Derby:

St. Louis Fed economist Fernando Martin says inflation in the pre-Fed period was highly volatile as elected leaders periodic took the dollar off the gold standard and then re-established it. That created surges of inflation that were then followed by deflation.

“The postwar period exhibits the same recurrence of high inflation episodes as the preceding period,” Mr. Martin wrote. But without a gold standard forcing prices and wages lower at times, there was no deflation to pull the overall price level back down toward its historical average.
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Source: The Wall Street Journal