IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001320533

Industrial Evolution: Mechanical and Biological Innovation at the General Electric Research Laboratory (2013)

Curry, Helen Anne (Author)

Technology and Culture
Volume: 54, no. 4
Issue: 4
Pages: 746-781

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

X-rays Radioactivity Industrial laboratories Biology Economic botany; plant cultivation; horticulture Plant genetics Technology and industry Medicine 20th century, late 20th century, early United States General Electric

This paper explores the history of attempts to apply x-ray radiation as a tool of plant breeding through a case study of a short-lived research program at the General Electric Research Laboratory in the 1930s. As I show, the goal of this program was to turn the appearance of genetic variation into an efficient, predictable process---in other words, it was an effort to create a precision tool for altering genes. I further argue that in the context of the industrial research laboratory, as opposed to other sites where the use of radiation in plant breeding was explored, researchers sought in particular to align the processes of biological innovation with those of mechanical and industrial innovation. The account provides a new perspective on the history of agro-biotechnologies in an industrial context as well as on the intersecting histories of biological and other technological development.

...More

Description “Explores the history of attempts to apply x-ray radiation as a tool of plant breeding through a case study of a short-lived research program at the General Electric Research Laboratory in the 1930s.” (from the abstract)

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320533/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Hahn, Barbara; (2011)
Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617--1937 (/isis/citation/CBB001220603/)

Article Miller, David Philip; (2011)
The Paradoxes of Patenting at General Electric: Isador Ladoff's Journey from Siberian Exile to the Heart of Corporate Capitalism (/isis/citation/CBB001220016/)

Article Endersby, Jim; (2013)
Mutant Utopias: Evening Primroses and Imagined Futures in Early Twentieth-Century America (/isis/citation/CBB001321212/)

Chapter Wilder, Kelley; (2010)
Visualizing Radiation: The Photographs of Henri Becquerel (/isis/citation/CBB001221460/)

Article Paulina Oszajca; (2023)
Amore mortale. La storia dell’uso del radio nei prodotti di bellezza (/isis/citation/CBB453209942/)

Article Berry, Dominic; (2014)
The Plant Breeding Industry after Pure Line Theory: Lessons from the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (/isis/citation/CBB001420118/)

Article Elina, Olga; Heim, Susanne; Roll-Hansen, Nils; (2005)
Plant Breeding on the Front: Imperialism, War, and Exploitation (/isis/citation/CBB000610603/)

Article Munns, David P. D.; (2014)
“The Awe in Which Biologists Hold Physicists”: Frits Went's First Phytotron at Caltech, and an Experimental Definition of the Biological Environment (/isis/citation/CBB001510273/)

Book Ginger Strand; (2015)
The Brothers Vonnegut: Science and Fiction in the House of Magic (/isis/citation/CBB822557778/)

Article Leonelli, Sabina; (2007)
Arabidopsis, the Botanical Drosophila: From Mouse Cress to Model Organism (/isis/citation/CBB000771724/)

Article Thomas, Marion; (2004)
De nouveaux territoires d'introduction du mendélisme en France: Louis Blaringhem (1878--1958), un généticien néolamarckien sur le terrain agricole (/isis/citation/CBB000551128/)

Article Nishimura, Shigehiro; (2011)
International Patent Control and Transfer of Knowledge: The United States and Japan before World War II (/isis/citation/CBB001211692/)

Article Hamblin, Jacob Darwin; (2007)
“A Dispassionate and Objective Effort”: Negotiating the First Study on the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation (/isis/citation/CBB000771313/)

Article Campos, Luis; (2007)
The Birth of Living Radium (/isis/citation/CBB001031783/)

Thesis Shubow, Jessica; (2002)
A Political History of the Normal Body in the United States from the Progressive Era to the Cold War (/isis/citation/CBB001562502/)

Book Ivey, Paul Eli; (2013)
Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science (/isis/citation/CBB001320944/)

Chapter Kevles, Daniel J.; (2011)
New Blood, New Fruits: Protections for Breeders and Originators, 1789--1930 (/isis/citation/CBB001221559/)

Chapter Rainger, Ronald; (2004)
“A Wonderful Oceanographic Tool”: The Atomic Bomb, Radioactivity and the Development of American Oceanography (/isis/citation/CBB000650820/)

Thesis Boland, Joseph B.; (2002)
The Cold War legacy of regulatory risk analysis: The Atomic Energy Commission and radiation safety (/isis/citation/CBB001562538/)

Thesis Bolduc, Steven Robert; (2001)
The Problem of Complex Technology in Public Policy Design: A History and Policy Evaluation of Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy in the United States (/isis/citation/CBB001562374/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}