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Thesis ID: CBB001561291

In the Crevices of the City: Public Health, Urban Housing, and the Creatures We Call Pests, 1900--2000 (2007)

University of Wisconsin at Madison
Cronon, William
Publication date: 2007
Language: English

Publication Date: 2007
Edition Details: Advisor: Cronon, William
Physical Details: 577 pp.

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Urbanization Pesticides; insecticides Public health Insect control Vertebrate pests Private life 20th century United States

This project traces the historical geography of campaigns to control house flies, bedbugs, German cockroaches, and Norway rats in residential areas of American cities in the twentieth century. These efforts to control pests for health reasons--ranging from infectious diseases, to bites, to mental stress, to allergies--were hampered by the cultural, political, and social meanings of the line between public and private space. Each chapter traces a different episode in which configurations of housing and public and private space, pest control approaches, and the ecologies of pests reshaped one another. Trends and movements in housing, such as suburbanization and the development of public housing, interwove with the application of new pesticide technologies, and they also informed regulations on household pesticides. Unwanted animals, as well as chemical pesticides, readily crossed the permeable border of the home and became irritating and risky in these intimate spaces. The state, however, most often stopped at the threshold of the private home when providing assistance in controlling pests and making decisions about pesticide use. The race, class, gender, and location of residents often provided underlying justifications for policies that make pests a private responsibility. Through all of these campaigns, pests persisted, and in fact they continue to adapt to control technologies and the urban landscape. They remain in large part because humans build and maintain cities and homes in ways that deny that dwellings are part of nature. Holistic, ecological approaches have promised to reduce pest populations and integrate homes with nature, but these approaches remain incomplete so long as residents lack the means to maintain decent housing.

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Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 68/12 (2008). Pub. no. AAT 3294117.

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