Before OPEC took center stage, one state agency in Texas was 
widely believed to set oil prices for the world. The Texas Railroad 
Commission (TRC) evolved from its founding in 1891 to a multi-
divisional regulatory commission that oversaw not only railroads but 
also a number of other industries central to the modern American 
economy: petroleum production, natural gas utilities, and motor 
carriers.

    William R. Childs's unprecedented study of the TRC from its 
founding until the mid-twentieth century focuses on the interplay 
between business and regulators, between state and national 
regulatory commissions, and among the three branches of 
government through a process of "pragmatic federalism."

    Childs demonstrates that the myth of TRC's power was devised 
by the agency itself as part of building a civil religion of Texas oil. 
Together, the myth and the civil religion enabled the TRC to convince 
Texas oil operators to follow production controls and thus stabilized 
the American oil industry by the 1940s.

    The result of this fascinating study is a more nuanced 
understanding of regulation in a federal system, the forces shaping it, 
and its outcomes.

_________________________________________________________

WILLIAM R. CHILDS is an associate professor of history at Ohio 
State University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at 
Austin.


Number Seventeen: Kenneth E. Montague Series in Oil and Business


What people are saying about this book

“ . . . advances the study of American regulation by arguing forcefully 
for the importance of law, people, and culture in addition to the 
traditional focus on industry structure and ideology . . . provides a 
nuanced understanding of the TRC and its role in the development of 
the oil industry, highlighting its history, capabilities, and limitations . . . 
highly recommended for anyone interested in learning more about the 
history of American regulation. In particular, energy historians 
examining the role of regulation in energy markets as well as the 
history of the TRC will find this work very valuable.”—H-Net Reviews, 
Summer 2007

"In tracing the emergence of economic regulation from the perspective 
of Texas, Childs has produced a major book of institutional and policy 
history relevant to the larger study of economic development in the 
United States, the rise of governmental management of the economy 
between the 1880s and the 1950s and the movement toward 
deregulation since the 1970s. . . . In short, Childs has put some of the 
history back into 'economic history.'"—American Historical Review, 
February 2007

". . . an insightful study of the development of commission-style 
regulation . . . his book provides a new and valuable framework for 
the study of the political economy of regulation."—Business 
History Review, Autumn 2006

"Child's has succeeded in ably chronicling and analyzing the complex 
history of Texas's most important state agency of the  twentieth 
century."—Southwestern Historical Quarterly, October 2006

". . . the most in-depth study of Texas' well-known regulatory 
commission through the 1930s."—Christopher Castaneda, California 
State University–Sacramento

". . . a striking narrative of the conditions that inexorably entwined big 
business with big government."—The Antioch Review, Summer 2006