Secure a copy of an old mail order catalog. Dover Publications publishes a Montgomery Ward 1895 catalog (ISBN 9780486223773). Make two columns on a sheet of paper. The heading for column one will be the year of your primary source publication, i.e., 1895 in the case of the Montgomery Ward catalog. Column two will be the current year. Along the left-hand side of the paper, make a list of the products whose prices you are comparing. Compare the price of the products advertised in 1895 to their price today. What do you think accounts for the price differences?