From Private Roads to Socialist Roads in America

EH.net reports:

In 1880 many toll road companies nationwide continued to operate – probably in the range of 400 to 600 companies.6 But by 1920 the private toll road was almost entirely stamped out. From Maine to California, the laws and political attitudes from around 1880 onward moved against the handling of social affairs in ways that seemed informal, inexpert and unsystematic. Progressivism represented a burgeoning of more collectivist ideologies and policy reforms. Many progressive intellectuals took inspiration from European socialist doctrines.