The period to which you refer was produced by the explosive productive capabilities of the Industrial Revolution and it was held back by the Gold Standard for the short time it existed. England went off of convertibility for a large part of that period, the US for the Civil War period, so it didn’t even really exist.
The monetary standard was imposed by Great Britain for its benefit and was renounced when it no longer served its benefit.
The “People” had nothing to do with the Gold Standard’s adoption or removal. Although it was a popular campaign issue as the West demanded Silver and across the nation there were Greenback movements after the Civil War.
The Fed is a private corporation.
Even gold would still be in the governments’ hands as they would manipulating coinage, and reserve levels to affect trade. Governments could subsidize or restrict gold mining and exploration. Governments could do many things to affect the level of gold production and consumption.
But you are correct that the Fed’s goal is not the protection of the dollar per se. The value of the dollar is the result of many non-monetary influences as well as monetary ones. Congress passed a law decades ago making it target employment and economic growth not the value of the dollar.
Those are goals which the “People” wanted set.
For most people, most of the time, the IR didn’t touch them much. Horse, oxen, walking and sail, as in the Roman times. Water pumps were still animal, human or handpowered. Lighting by oil. If anything the common benefits of the IR didn’t occur to the end.
Further the physical spread of people, ALL the houses, farms, cities were built by hand.
The Civli War printing, and impoverishing inflation is a great little example, but not for you.
There are where there are governments, ‘monetary standards’. The standard, always of government controlled money, is debasement. In every instance. ( See the ECB today )
The people, anyone, could go and if the government debased the gold, could get gold, or silver. and have accepted, universal money. Try that with a press today.
The Fed is an Act of Congress and exists at it’s pleasure, and remits all profits to the US Treasury.
Yes, gold would be under effect of the government, but not totally, and for some, basic human reason, has always retained it’s value, everywhere. Fiat currency, not such a good record.
The Fed( not all it’s fault) has failed at value protection of the dollar and employment. The value of a dollar has dropped 99 percent since the introduction of the Fed. Bernanke would tell you that the Fed failed during the Depression, which is unexplained as that the 1907 panic was used to sell the creation of the Fed. So the history right there is that the first test the Fed failed.
Basically when dealing with Fed history is that good times are result of them, and bad times are anomalies that they couldn’t do anything about. Kind of like HUD, or the Dept of Education, or the CIA or most any government agencies. Basically, keep the money/power flowing to us and don’t hold us responsible for anything. ( No one ever, every gets fired. Does that seem conductive to progress in general? ). Greenspan says he/the Fed had nothing to do with the house/stock bubble. Bernanke said everything was fine. That QE1 and so will work. Keep us in position, pension, and we’re not responsible. Who would accept such palaver? You? )