That's definitely in spite of being on the gold standard. Have a look at the history of financial crises in the US [1]. In the time period you mentioned, there

That's definitely in spite of being on the gold standard. Have a look at the history of financial crises in the US [1]. In the time period you mentioned, there were 21 recessions, five 'panics' and three depressions. If you look at the CPI history, it was largely deflationary (which is good if you do like recessions and depressions), but also times where inflation reached 27% [2]. The gold standard can't stop price inflation, and when inflation takes off it makes currency pegs impossible to hold, which is why pretty much every commodity convertible currency has eventually failed. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit... 2. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/community/financial-and-economic-education/cpi-calculator-information/consumer-price-index-1800 https://www.minneapolisfed.org/community/financial-and-econo...