Industry invites regulation: the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

Abstract

Ending its 27-year stranglehold on proposals for federal pure food and drug legislation, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and its companion bill, the Meat Inspection Act, on June 30, 1906. An unprecedented convergence of consumer, scientific, and industrial support in 1906 prompted such action; most industries even planned for it, hoping regulation would restore the competitiveness of their products on weak foreign and domestic markets. The ways in which these interests converged, and the reasons therefore, suggest a change in their relationships to each other and with the federal government as America headed into the twentieth century.