Corporations in the early 1900s are often depicted as being callously indifferent about the safety of their employees (even more so than today), famously described in Sinclair's The Jungle and Thomas Bell's Out of this Furnace. As Sam Peltzman and others have pointed out, government regulation of the workplace tends to yield more safety or other intended "benefit" than is socially efficient and often fails in providing safety that might otherwise have been provided by the private sector.

An example of self-regulation in the workplace long before OSHA is reported in the May 15, 1908 NYT:

Extreme measures to prevent future mine disasters have been taken by the H.C. Frick Coke Company, the coking division of the United States Steel Corporation. Orders have been issued providing for the dismissal of miners who become so intoxicated while off duty that they are incapacitated for work the following day...

They declare that the use of intoxicants among the miners, particularly the foreign element, has been so pronounced in recent years that they cannot afford to employ them. At such times, they allege, the men take chances that they would not take if in their normal condition.

In mining, one mistake can have substantial negative externalities on the other workers in the mine. Thus, unlike companies today that seek to limit off-campus behavior in order to lower health insurance costs, the mining company seemed to be creating efficient self-regulation.