Federal Spending and Power

Within four years, during peacetime, the Navy Department's budget [under Teddy Roosevelt] would escalate to over $117 million - more than 20 percent of total federal expenditures. In 1896, when McKinley first took office, the navy required $27 million...

...As it happened, federal contractors were soon prohibited from night work for women and child laborers. Other than mere legislation and enforcement, larger government expenditures gave policy makers the lever of the purse to influence industrial behavior. Thanks to the navy, the government became one large, demanding customer.

Can be argued that this is when it all changed. Federal regulations and the birth of the military industrial complex.