English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Zendy Plus

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Zendy Tools

Zendy Open

Heeding recent calls to explore the contributions of creative political actors other than federal judges to the process of American legal development, this article examines the role of state attorneys general (SAGs) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Consistent with recent revisionist accounts concerning the extent of government power during this era of supposed “laissez-faire,” I find that SAGs creatively employed common law legal theories to address the emerging industrial and corporate order. Through a review of state court cases and newspaper accounts, I discuss how SAGs pursued the “public interest” by seeking injunctions against businesses and even corporate dissolution through public nuisance and quo warranto theories. These efforts to regulate business during the Gilded Age, at a time when standard administrative solutions were absent, directly and indirectly shaped subsequent statutory developments.

Litigating the “Public Interest” in the Gilded Age: Common Law Business Regulation by Nineteenth-Century State Attorneys General