Soft Regulatory Capture and Institutional Change: Factory Inspection in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 1879–1912

How do street-level regulators cope with competing demands from labor and capital alongside limited capacity to achieve their mandates? How do their adaptive strategies contribute to institutional change? This article addresses these questions through case studies of 19th-century factory inspection departments in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Tasked with enforcing child labor and occupational safety regulations, inspectors faced a “trilemma” of high stakeholder expectations, weak state capacity, and structural dependence on capital. Using quantitative and qualitative data from newspapers, annual reports, and archives, I identify two strategies through which inspectors adapted to this trilemma: performative governance and diversion. These strategies indicated a soft form of regulatory capture (SRC). Eventually, SRC generated backlash from labor and progressives; in response, inspectorates were replaced by state labor departments still in existence today. The analysis illuminates how the regulatory welfare state functions in practice and how its inherent tensions can lead to institutional restructuring.