$100 in 1914 is worth $291 in 1959,
because prices increased 191.0% over that period, an average of
2.40% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$291
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
191.0%
Average inflation rate
2.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$291
Price difference ($100 base)
$191
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1914 → 1959
$291
$100 in 1959 → 1914
$34.36
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1959
Between 1914 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 191.0%, which works out to an average of
2.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.34 buys in 1959: the 1914 dollar
lost 65.6% of its purchasing power over
these 45 years.
Consumer prices barely moved in 1914, rising just 1.0% for the year, even as
the country’s financial plumbing was rebuilt from the ground up. The Federal
Reserve Banks, created by the Federal Reserve Act signed the previous
December, opened their doors on November 16, giving the U.S. a central bank
for the first time since the 1830s. Weeks earlier, the outbreak of war in
Europe had spooked the New York Stock Exchange into closing for more than
four months, the longest shutdown in its history, as officials worried
European investors would dump American securities for gold. Domestically, the
bigger story was labor: Henry Ford’s decision to pay factory workers $5 a
day, announced in January, roughly doubled wages on his assembly lines and
pushed other manufacturers to raise pay just to keep workers from leaving. A
first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, a price that had held since 1885 and
would keep holding for three more years, even as the war reshaping Europe
began pulling the American economy toward the sustained wartime inflation of
1917.
Every 1914 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 2.91: $1,000 becomes
$2,910, and $10,000 becomes $29,100.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1959
$1.00
$2.91
$5.00
$14.55
$10.00
$29.10
$20.00
$58.20
$50.00
$146
$100
$291
$500
$1,455
$1,000
$2,910
$5,000
$14,550
$10,000
$29,100
$100,000
$291,000
$1,000,000
$2,910,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1959
Between 1914 and 1959, apparel rose the most, up 200.0%, while food rose the least, up 191.2%, against 191.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.40%
$291
Apparel
2.47%
$300
Food
2.40%
$291
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1914: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1914 to 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$167
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$140
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$241
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$291
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $139 by
1936, on its way to $291 in 1959; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1959
In 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $291; the year's average CPI of 29.1 is the level
behind every 1959 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1959: $100 is worth $291 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1959/