Roots of Reform

Offers a revision of the understanding of the rise of the regulatory state in the late 19th century. Elizabeth Sanders argues that politically mobilized farmers were the driving force behind most of the legislation that increased national control over private economic power. She demonstrates that farmers from the south, midwest and west reached out to the urban labourers who shared their class position and their principal antagonist - northeastern monopolistic industrial and financial capital - despite weak electoral support from organized labour. Based on evidence from legislative records and other sources, Sanders shows that this tenuous alliance of "producers versus plutocrats" shaped early regulatory legislation, remained powerful through the populist and progressive eras, and developed a characteristic method of democratic state expansion with continued relevance for subsequent reform movements.