IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001251551

Toxic Fables: The Advertising and Marketing of Agricultural Chemicals in the Great Plains, 1945--1985 (2012)

Vail, David D. (Author)

Endeavour: Review of the Progress of Science
Volume: 36, no. 4
Issue: 4
Pages: 165-173

Publication Date: 2012
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “Silent Spring after Fifty Years”
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Pesticides; insecticides Agricultural chemistry Marketing techniques Agriculture 20th century, late Great Plains (North America) United States Carson, Rachel Louise

This paper examines how pesticides and their technolo- gies were sold to farmers and pilots throughout the midtwentieth century. It principally considers how mar- keting rhetoric and advertisement strategies used by chemical companies and aerial spraying firms influenced the practices and perspectives of farm producers in the Great Plains. In order to convince landowners and agri- cultural leaders to buy their pesticides, chemical compa- nies generated advertisements that championed local crop health, mixture accuracy, livestock safety and a chemical-farming `way of life' that kept fields healthy and productive. Combining notions of safety, accuracy and professionalism with pest eradication messages rein- forced the standards that landowners, pilots and agricul- turalists would hold regarding toxicity and risk when spraying their fields. As the politics of health changed in the aftermath of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, these companies and aerial spraying outfits responded by keep- ing to a vision of agricultural health that required

...More

Included in

Article Davis, Frederick R. (2012) Silent Spring after 50 years. Endeavour: Review of the Progress of Science (pp. 129-130). unapi

Citation URI

http://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001251551/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Hurt, R. Douglas; (2001)
The Great Plains: Agriculture and the Environment in the Late Twentieth Century (/isis/citation/CBB000102073/)

Article Nash, Linda; (2004)
The Fruits of Ill-Health: Pesticides and Workers' Bodies in Post-World War II California (/isis/citation/CBB000750328/)

Book Michelle Mart; (2015)
Pesticides, A Love Story: America's Enduring Embrace of Dangerous Chemicals (/isis/citation/CBB036580158/)

Article José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez; (2019)
Arsenical Pesticides in Early Francoist Spain: Fascism, Autarky, Agricultural Engineers and the Invisibility of Toxic Risks (/isis/citation/CBB952185755/)

Article Jarman, Walter M.; Ballschmiter, Karlheinz; (2012)
From Coal to DDT: The History of the Development of the Pesticide DDT from Synthetic Dyes till Silent Spring (/isis/citation/CBB001251547/)

Article Hecht, David K.; (2011)
Constructing a Scientist: Expert Authority and Public Images of Rachel Carson (/isis/citation/CBB001220826/)

Article Frederick Rowe Davis; (2019)
Pesticides and the Perils of Synecdoche in the History of Science and Environmental History (/isis/citation/CBB309063848/)

Article Gay, Hannah; (2012)
Before and after Silent Spring: From Chemical Pesticides to Biological Control and Integrated Pest Management---Britain, 1945--1980 (/isis/citation/CBB001210095/)

Book John Opie; Char Miller; Kenna Lang Archer; (2018)
Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land (/isis/citation/CBB938025675/)

Thesis Cohen, Benjamin R.; (2005)
Notes from the Ground: Science and Agricultural Improvement in the Early American Republic (/isis/citation/CBB001561602/)

Article Pawley, Emily; (2010)
Accounting with the Fields: Chemistry and Value in Nutriment in American Agricultural Improvement, 1835--1860 (/isis/citation/CBB001034645/)

Book Tarleton, Raymond J.; (2000)
History of the American Association of Cereal Chemists, 1915--2000 (/isis/citation/CBB000430071/)

Book Cohen, Benjamin R.; (2009)
Notes from the Ground: Science, Soil and Society in the American Countryside (/isis/citation/CBB001021102/)

Article Sheail, John; (2013)
Pesticides and the British Environment: An Agricultural Perspective (/isis/citation/CBB001213132/)

Article Hajdik, Anna; (2014)
A “Bovine Glamour Girl”: Borden Milk, Elsie the Cow, and the Convergence of Technology, Animals, and Gender at the 1939 New York World's Fair (/isis/citation/CBB001421771/)

Article Ott, Daniel; (2014)
Producing a Past: McCormick Harvester and Producer Populists in the 1890s (/isis/citation/CBB001320831/)

Article Cohen, Benjamin R.; (2011)
Analysis as Border Patrol: Chemists along the Boundary between Pure Food and Real Adulteration (/isis/citation/CBB001210129/)

Book Heefner, Gretchen; (2012)
The Missile Next Door: The Minuteman in the American Heartland (/isis/citation/CBB001550030/)

Article Jennifer Bonnell; (January 2021)
Early Insecticide Controversies and Beekeeper Advocacy in the Great Lakes Region (/isis/citation/CBB042359495/)

Book Angelo, Mary Jane; (2013)
The Law and Ecology of Pesticides and Pest Management (/isis/citation/CBB001422253/)