For a century prior to Ronald Reagan’s presidency, price controls were a part of the political mainstream. At certain times, they were applied to specific goods, and at others — namely during wars — they were imposed on just about everything.

1876

Some of the earliest price controls were implemented at the behest of populist farmers being squeezed by the rates charged by storage warehouses. In 1876, the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of such rate regulation in its Munn v. Illinois decision, and in the decades that followed, the amount charged by railroads, utilities, and insurance companies came under public control.