The Movement for State Regulation of Coal Mines in the 19th Century

In the attempt to understand American industrial society, business historians have directed attention to the compatible themes of organization building, bureaucratization, and professionalization which constitute the core of "the organizational synthesis," thus furthering knowledge of the Progressive Era [18]. One contrast between the organizational interpretation and earlier "liberal historiography" lies in differing judgments concerning continuity and change in the past. Although the earlier interpretation emphasized the continuities in reform ideology throughout American history, the organizational view notes a sharp shift in attitude around 1900. This shift represented an adjustment to rather than a rejection of the new industrial system and the development of bureaucratic approaches to socioeconomic problems as opposed to the panaceas offered by 19th century reformers [54 and 23]. This essay does not challenge the organizational synthesis, but suggests reemphasis on continuity in conceptualizing the development of organizational ideologies which seem a product of evolving experiences and reactions to the changing conditions of industrial society. The struggle to achieve government regulation of health and safety conditions in coal mines during the 1870s came when the industry was in a formative, not mature, stage of development, yet revealed nascent themes commonly found in the Progressive Era. The mine regulatory movement was led by men who combined advocacy of financial panacea and cooperative enterprise for national economic problems with an incipient class consciousness and a developing notion of applying nonpartisan expertise embodied in bureaucratic agencies to ease the day-to-day hardships of work in deep mines. It involved the migration of men and ideas across the Atlantic and the nation's earliest efforts at trade union organization. It concerned the newly formed profession of mine engineering. Although vigorously opposed by coal operators and political leaders who espoused a doctrine of strict government parsimony and an organic (as opposed to class or interest group