Food Riots and Hyperinflation: How America's Women Won Our War for Independence on the Homefront
The nascent United States is nearly dead only a few years after it was first born--dead, not on the battlefield, but rather economically. On the homefront, arable land is being destroyed left and right as the British and Continental armies fight back and forth across New England and the mid-Atlantic states. The American dollar, created by Congress just after the Declaration of Independence was ratified, continues to plummet in value thanks in large part to a relentless campaign of British counterfeiting and a rate of inflation that by the end of the 1770’s increases at the staggering rate of 47% each month! This rate of hyperinflation has given rise to the commonplace term, “As worthless as a Continental,” in reference to the Continental dollar, a phrase that is used by both patriot and loyalist alike, to denote anything, be it literal or intrinsic, that is perceived as having no value whatsoever. And worst of all foodstuffs and basic necessities are becoming both mor...