Morton Keller, a leading scholar of twentieth-century American history, describes the complex interplay between rapid economic change and regulatory policy. In its portrait of the response of American politics and law to a changing economy, this book provides a fresh understanding of emerging public policy for a modern nation.

How did the federal government change from the weak apparatus of the antebellum period to the large, administrative state of the Progressive Era? To Enlarge the Machinery of Government explores the daily proceedings of the U.S. House and Senate from 1858 to 1891 to find answers to this question. Through close readings of debates centered around sponsorship, supervision, and standardization recorded in the Congressional Globe and Congressional Record during this period, Williamjames Hull Hoffer traces a critical shift in ideas that ultimately ushered in Progressive legislation: the willingness of American citizens to allow, and in fact ask for, federal intervention in their daily lives. He describes this era of congressional thought as a "second state," distinct from both the minimalist approaches that came before and the Progressive state building that developed later. The "second state" era, Hoffer contends, offers valuable insight into how conceptions of American uniqueness contributed to the shape of the federal government.

No enterprise is so seductive as a railroad for the influence it exerts, the power it gives, and the hope of gain it offers.—Poor's Manual of Railroads (1900) At its peak, the railroad was the Internet of its day in its transformative impact on American life and law. A harbinger and promoter of economic empire, it was also the icon of a technological revolution that accelerated national expansion and in the process transformed our legal system. James W. Ely Jr., in the first comprehensive legal history of the rail industry, shows that the two institutions-the railroad and American law-had a profound influence on each other. Ely chronicles how "America's first big business" impelled the creation of a vast array of new laws in a country where long-distance internal transport had previously been limited to canals and turnpikes. Railroads, the first major industry to experience extensive regulation, brought about significant legal innovations governing interstate commerce, eminent domain, private property, labor relations, and much more. Much of this development was originally designed to serve the interests of the railroads themselves but gradually came to contest and control the industry's power and exploitative tendencies. As Ely reveals, despite its great promise and potential as an engine of prosperity and uniter of far-flung regions, the railroad was not universally admired. Railroads uprooted people, threatened local autonomy, and posed dangers to employees and the public alike-situations with unprecedented legal ramifications. Ely explores the complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which those ramifications played out, as railroads crossed state lines and knitted together a diverse nation with thousands of miles of iron rail. Epic in its scope, Railroads and American Law makes a complex subject accessible to a wide range of readers, from legal historians to railroad buffs, and shows the many ways in which a powerful industry brought change and innovation to America.

In this book, nine scholars representing various perspectives examine institutions that govern economic activity in the United States and the dramatic changes they have undergone since the late nineteenth century. They investigate how and why these changes occurred and continue to occur as markets become more volatile, technology changes and international competition becomes more intense. They also address general questions about the governance of capitalist economies by considering several governance mechanisms such as markets, bureaucratic hierarchies, associations and informal networks and by exploring how such mechanisms emerge to coordinate economic activity and affect economic performance. The first part of the book describes the important characteristics of these organisational forms and provides an overview of institutional development in the US economy. The second part includes case studies of the institutional development of eight economic sectors. Finally, based on data from these case studies, the third part of the book tests competing theories of institutional change in capitalism, develops a new evolutionary model of the change process, and offers an original analysis of how the state influences this process.