In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, an exposé of the environmental dangers posed by synthetic pesticides. This was and remains a landmark text and played a key role in the formation of the environmental movement. Carson's book undoubtedly influenced environmental legislation, such as the Wilderness Act of 1964, and public opinion on pesticides. Even so, many historians, such as Ralph Lutts and J. Brooks Flippen, over-emphasise the book’s role in galvanising American environmental consciousness. Brooks has referred to the 1940s and 1950s as “a time when environmental concerns were non-existent,” while Flippen has described the period as one of “relative indifference” towards ecologically destructive chemicals. These arguments have sought to reinforce a broader narrative that the 1960s was a breakthrough decade in terms of the advent of enlightened environmental attitudes.[1]

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Instead, this essay argues for a more nuanced interpretation of environmental consciousness during the early post-war period. The essay question will be answered by exploring the discussions that took place around key events concerning synthetic pesticides and their influence on American environmental consciousness. Through this, the essay aims to contrast the concerns of the public with the government and corporate elite to reveal the divisions in America's environmental consciousness in the early post-war period. It will achieve this mainly through the qualitative analysis of contemporary published opinion and to a lesser extent through the quantitative analysis of topics in newspapers. This essay will examine primary sources that publicly addressed synthetic pesticides' environmental effects, including Time Magazine and The New York Post, statements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Army, and U.S. Public Health Department reports. While these sources do not directly reflect American environmental consciousness, they provide some indication of the opinions towards synthetic pesticides and their environmental impact.

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In this essay, environmental consciousness means a respect for nature and its aesthetic value, and an awareness of human impact on ecosystems. Additionally, synthetic pesticides refer to manmade pesticides that are differentiated from organic pesticides by their persistence and biological potency. The pesticides discussed in this essay are chlorinated hydrocarbons. These remarkably stable chemicals take much longer to break down than organic pesticides, like nicotine and arsenic.[2]

During the war, DDT emerged as a so-called “miracle chemical”.[3] DDT had proven to be an effective tool for controlling insect-borne epidemics after it was used against typhus-carrying lice in Naples in 1943-44. Likewise, DDT effectively rid entire Pacific islands of malaria-carrying mosquitoes after aerial spraying.[4] As no symptoms of poisoning were observed post-spraying, DDT was reported to have “amazing properties.”[5] These episodes suggested DDT's potential usefulness against domestic insect problems.​

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However, as 1945 wore on, popular opinion changed. An experiment with DDT to exterminate an infestation of spruce budworm in Algonquin Park, Toronto, Canada, from 1943 until April 1945, revealed DDT’s toxicity to aquatic and amphibious animals. The USDA commented that DDT was not yet safe for civilian use in Time Magazine.[6] The interest given to the subject by Time Magazine reflects a perceived general concern over wildlife health.

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Additionally, experiments conducted in January 1945 showed that DDT caused “necropsy” and “degeneration of the liver” in mammals when ingested in high doses.[7] In light of this, scientists told reporters “nobody knows for sure how much DDT a human (or a cow) can tolerate, or whether small and apparently harmless doses may not do serious damage... over a long period.”[8] The attention given to the environmental effects of DDT by the scientific community exhibits an awareness and concern of the risks posed by synthetic pesticides and not indifference as Lutts has argued.[9]

Likewise, multiple Federal departments expressed concern over the environmental harms posed by DDT. They even urged restraint in epidemics, exhibiting the high value placed on environmental wellbeing. The US Army and the USPHS released a joint statement in April stating:

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Dramatic reports of its [DDT] large-scale use to control epidemics... have fired public imagination and fostered the hasty conclusion that DDT is a complete solution to all our insect-borne disease problems. However, it must be remembered that DDT distributed over the countryside... may kill other insects, many of which are beneficial...[10]

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The consensus in popular magazines, government statements, and the scientific community during 1945 was that DDT was a “two-edged sword.”[11] The influential and trusted opinions expressed to the public concluded that DDT should be avoided because of its impact on wildlife, despite the chemical’s apparent human benefits. Ultimately, these examples exhibit a significant degree of environmental consciousness in public-facing institutions, contrary to Flippen’s observations.[12]

Even so, neither popular published opinion nor environmental issues informed the War Production Board’s (WPB) decision to release DDT for civilian use on August 6th, 1945. The WPB was in control of the wartime DDT supply. The Board thought that the chemical industry would collapse if production was ramped down, which had previously happened after World War One.[13] This small, yet consequential development, exposes the fault lines in America's environmental consciousness: the priorities and values of the lower general public and those of the higher government elite. Despite this, the US government was not unitary, and other government departments with public health interests such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) opposed the decision.[14] 

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Meanwhile, a polio epidemic was developing in Rockford, Illinois, in early August 1945. Before the development of the polio vaccine in the early 1950s, the prevailing method of insect control was sanitation. This was because flies, which were a suspected, yet debated, polio vector, thrived in dirt. Consequently, plans developed by the National Fund for Infantile Paralysis - a philanthropic organisation funding polio eradication - to experiment with aerial DDT spraying for epidemic control were put into action once DDT was released for public use.[15]

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Local authorities allowed Rockford to be sprayed with an environmentally destructive chemical because the perceived imminent public health danger posed by polio outweighed DDT’s potential environmental hazards.[16] This perception was informed by government anti-insect propaganda that aimed to raise awareness of their disease risks.[17] In an attempt to avoid a domestic polio epidemic, the USPHS manufactured a domestic insect enemy, which instilled a sense of danger in the environment. As a result, local authorities understood pests to be a greater threat than pesticides.

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Muchley, Robert, “The Fly is as Deadly as a Bomber!!” (Philadelphia, Pa.: War Services Project, 1941-1943), accessed on 29/10/2024, https://www.loc.gov/item/98517381/; “When a fly wipes his feet on your food, HE’S SPREADING DIESASE!” (Washington, DC: U.S. G.P.O., 1943), accessed on 6/11/2024, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22WHEN_A_FLY_WIPES_HIS_FEET_ON_YOUR_FOOD,_HE%27S_SPREADING_DISEASE%5E_NEVER_GIVE_A_GERM_A_BREAK%22_-_NARA_-_516140.jpgommons.

 

The public came to the same conclusion, as mid-forties America was caught in a polio panic. This caused citizens to demand city authorities “DO something.” The Rockford spraying was highly publicised by the local press nationwide, including Michigan’s The News Palladium and Pennsylvania’s Daily Notes.[18] Thus, the exemplary DDT spraying over Rockford, which was “as nearly as typical as any U.S. city,” provided a much-needed answer to many cities with no effective means of polio prevention. [19]

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The Rockford epidemic provides insight into how DDT was accepted by the public, despite initial wariness. The widespread publicity of DDT’s use to combat a domestic disease enemy transformed DDT’s image from a perceived threat to a symbol of protection. Environmental concerns were not non-existent, but suppressed, as wildlife protection did not come before safeguarding public health. Ultimately, indiscriminate and widespread DDT spraying was justified through the belief that pests posed a greater risk than pesticides and that the environment harboured dangers that could be resolved through sanitation.

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Chemical manufacturers perpetuated this acceptance throughout the early postwar period to capitalise on public germophobia. DDT was reinvented as a sanitation brand. This cemented its association with safety from disease and germs.[20] This is evident in an advertisement by Penn Salt, a chemical manufacturer in 1948. The advertisement emulates war propaganda through its depiction of a giant fly standing before a baby and warns of the polio risks flies pose.

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[Photo removed - please follow URL]​​​​​​​

Pennsylvania salt manufacturing Company, “So... You Wouldn’t Hurt a Fly!” Life, 31 May 1948, 102, accessed on 29/20/2024, https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WkYEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

 

DDT was integrated into society through means deemed necessary by the public. Thus, initial environmental concerns were muted and attention moved on. Meanwhile, the U.S. government allocated the control of synthetic pesticides to the Department of Agriculture through the 1947 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Going forward, this meant that pesticide use would prioritise the economic concerns of farmers, not environmental issues.[21]

Ensuring the prioritisation of economic concerns made sense to the U.S. government. This is because the USDA, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Army competed with insects for resources, such as crop yields, timber, and worker productivity during the war.[22] After the war, the notion of competition was perpetuated by the economic interests held by the government elite.[23] These interests were informed by the period’s dominant environmental ideology, conservationism. This ideology sought to bring about more efficient development and management of natural resources to secure long-term economic interests.[24] As a result, the creation of insect enemies during the war did not disappear. Rather, the notion became entrenched.

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Clay Lyle captured the mood of the USDA when he wrote “it is possible to wipe out insects and it is desirable to do so.”[25] Within five years, the USDA’s position on synthetic pesticides had changed dramatically. The department abandoned its earlier concern over the public health implications of synthetic pesticide use when confronted with the potential to secure massive economic gains.[26] This change reveals hardening attitudes towards the environment and the emergence of a disregard for human impact on ecosystems at the federal level.

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The implications of this change were apparent during the ‘Cranberry Scare’. In 1959, farmers were incorrectly using aminotriazole, a recently developed synthetic pesticide, to kill pests and increase crop yields and profits.[27] They were applying it to the cranberry crop, and not between harvests, as advised by the USDA. This left significant residues on the cranberries. A study finished in July revealed that aminotriazole caused cancer in mammals. Due to this, the FDA later confiscated half a million tons of cranberries near Thanksgiving. The novelty of the event created high publicity. References to cranberries, aminotriazole, and the discussion around carcinogens were mentioned one hundred and ninety times over seven weeks according to a survey of eight regional newspapers, including The New York Times, Wichita Evening Eagle, and The San Francisco Chronicle.[28] This resulted in widespread chemophobic panic and a sharp decrease in cranberry sales. [29]

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The backlash of the incident spurred the formation of the Committee on Pest Control and Wildlife Relationships to advise the government on pesticide matters. This committee was comprised of USDA officials, leading conservationists, and academics. It met for the first time on January 15th, 1960, to expose shortcomings in the available scientific information concerning the ecological consequences of pesticide use.[30] This development represents the reintegration of environmental concern into the US government's attitudes to pesticides as a result of public reaction, before Silent Spring. Contaminated cranberries linked environmental poisons and people through food, connecting the public to the environment in a similar way insect-borne diseases had previously. This sparked substantial discussion in newspapers across the nation, ultimately facilitating the widespread reemergence of scepticism towards synthetic pesticides.[31]

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The Cranberry Scare details a knee-jerk reaction to the environmental hazards of synthetic pesticides. However, concern over synthetic pesticides had been building before the incident. This is evident in the fire ant eradication campaign. The USDA decided to eradicate the fire ant, an invasive insect in the South, to increase economic productivity in southern agriculture. Here, agriculture was labour-intensive, and fire ants disrupted harvests by stinging labourers and building mounds that broke machinery.[32] Congressional authority to spray private property with dieldrin, a new synthetic pesticide, was won by the USDA in late 1957, and the campaign began that winter. [33]

By December, the news of the fire ant's planned eradication reached the public. Conservationist organisations, including the National Audubon Society and the Wildlife Federation, criticised the campaign for its disregard for wildlife and the use of dieldrin, whose ecological effects were unknown. These criticisms were endorsed by The New York Times, which brought the debate into the public eye.[34]

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The USDA refuted the claims in a press conference stating that the fire ant posed a greater threat to wildlife. In response to one critic, a USDA official claimed that “Tom cats are probably more harmful to birds than the overall effects of the economic poison."[35] Nonetheless, the first sprayings conducted between late 1957 and early 1958 confirmed conservationist concerns. Environmental destruction was widespread. The Alabama Department of Conservation (ALDoC) was already investigating declines in wildlife, particularly the quail population, from pesticide use. The intensified drops in wildlife population caused by the eradication campaign convinced the Department that pesticides were worse than pests. The ALDoC called for the immediate suspension of the eradication campaign. Funding was withdrawn for the campaign a year later, and other states followed suit. [36]

The reaction to the fire ant eradication campaign reveals that the USDA’s logic was controversial. Regional authorities, conservationist groups, and journalists contested the fire ant eradication campaign due to dieldrin’s negative impact on wildlife. Here, some of the lower sections of society challenged the economic priorities of the government elite due to their environmental concerns. This does not show American society’s “relative indifference” to pesticide use.[37] Rather, it exhibits a concern over their environmental impacts within multiple public-facing sections of society.

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Throughout the early postwar period, pesticide use was marked by public debate and controversy. The events included in this essay all received substantial coverage in major newspapers that emphasised the environmental consequences, good and bad, of pesticide use. This exhibits some degree of environmental consciousness through a critical discussion of the human impact on wildlife. It is an exaggeration to suggest, as some historians have, that American environmental consciousness was limited: the reality was more complex. Synthetic pesticides were not integrated into American society in 1945 out of indifference to their ecological dangers. They were accepted because they were understood to be less dangerous than certain insects, such as flies. Once integrated into society, synthetic pesticides allowed a temporary lowering of environmental concerns. This was based on the understanding of their necessity to combat insect-borne diseases, as wildlife welfare did not come before public health.

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This perception was a delicate balancing act supported by corporate advertising. However, it ultimately shattered when stewardship over synthetic pesticides was entrusted to the USDA. The undertaking of the fire ant eradication campaign in 1958 returned the controversial use of synthetic pesticides to the public debate. The dispute between USDA officials and journalists exposes the divisions within American thinking: a popular public concern for environmental health, and an economically motivated government elite. The increased attention towards synthetic pesticides, and their resulting environmental destruction, encouraged a revaluation of their environmental consequence at the local level. Lastly, the Cranberry Scare created a public health controversy in a way similar to insect-borne diseases. This resulted in a re-emergence of widespread scepticism towards synthetic pesticides and triggered a re-evaluation of pesticides' ecological consequences at the federal level.

Silent Spring was undoubtedly influential in igniting environmental concerns in this period. However, it should be recognised that it built upon a foundation of scepticism to pesticides and controversy over their environmental effects, and not indifference. To overlook this would be to diminish the agency of Americans in the 1940s and 1950s, and to unduly privilege the agency of those in the 1960s.

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[1] J. Brooks Flippen, “Pests, Pollution, and Politics: The Nixon Administration’s Pesticide Policy,” Agricultural History 71, no.4 (autumn, 1997): 445; Ralph H. Lutts, “Chemical fallout: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Radioactive Fallout, and the Environmental Movement," Environmental Review 9, no. 3 (Autumn 1985): 212.

[2] Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (London: Penguin Books, 1962), 33-35.

[3] C.R.S Harris, Allied Military Administration of Italy, 1943-1945, 419-420, quoted in Dunlap, DDT, 63.

[4] Dunlap, DDT, 61-62.

[5] “Science: DDT,” Time, June 12, 1944, accessed on 29/10/2024, https://time.com/archive/6897903/science-ddt/.

[6] “Science: DDT Dangers,” Time, April 16, 1945, https://time.com/archive/6772023/science-ddt-dangers/,  accessed on 29/10/2024.

[7] M.I. Smith, E.F. Stohlman, “Further Studies on the Pharmacologic Action of 2,2 Bis (P-Chlorophenyl) 1,1,1 Trichloroethane (DDT),” Public Health Reports 1896-1970 60, no. 11 (March 16, 1945), 289.

[8] Hambidge, “The New Insect Killers,” quoted in Elena Conis, “Polio, DDT, and Disease Risk in the United States after World War II,” Environmental History 22, no. 4 (October 2017): 700.

[9] Lutts, “Chemical Fallout,” 212.

[10] “Use of DDT for Mosquito Control in the United States: A Joint Statement of Policy by the United States Army and the United States Public Health Service,” Public Health Reports 1869-1970 60, no.17 (April 27,1945): 469.

[11] “DDT Dangers,” Time.

[12] “Science: Careful with DDT,” Time, October 22, 1945, accessed on 29/10/2024, https://time.com/archive/6774896/science-careful-with-ddt/; Flippen, “Pests,” 445.

[13]  Edmund Russel, War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001),162-163.

[14] Ibid.,162-163.

[15] Conis, “Polio,” 703-705.

[16] Conis, “Polio,” 703-705.

[17] Russel, War and Nature, 119-144.

[18] Conis, “Polio,” 703-705.

[19] William Llyod Warner, “Sociologist looks at an American Community,” Life, 12 September 1949, 108, accessed on  29/10/2024, https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yUkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA108&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false; Conis, “Polio,” 705-710; “Medicine: Polio Panic,” Time, August 1946, accessed on 29/10/2024, https://time.com/archive/6773458/medicine-polio-panic/.

[20] Conis, “Polio,” 711.

[21] Flippen, “Pests,” 445.

[22] Russel, War and Nature, 118.

[23] Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 13.

[24] Ibid., 13-14.

[25] Clay Lyle, “Can Insects be Eradicated?”  In Insects: The Yearbook of Agriculture, 1952, 197.

[26] Ibid., 199.

[27] Karl Boyd Brooks, Before Earth Day: The Origins of American Environmental Law, 1945-1970 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), 115-117.

[28] Mark Ryan Janzen, “The Cranberry Scare of 1959: The beginning of the End of the Delany Clause,” (PhD diss., Texas A&M University, 2010), 105.

[29] Dunlap, DDT, 107-108.

[30] W. H. Larrimer, “Pest Control and Wildlife Relationships,” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 52, no. 7 (1962): 163–67.

[31] Brooks, Before Earth Day, 115-117.

[32] Pete Daniel, “A Rouge Bureaucracy: The USDA Fire Ant campaign of the Late 1950s,” Agricultural History 64, no.2 (Spring 1990): 99.

[33] Ibid., 99-101.

[34] Ibid., 102-103; Dunlap, DDT, 90.

[35] Daniel, “A Rouge Bureaucracy,” 103.

[36] Joshua Blu Buhs, “Dead Cows on a Georgia Field: Mapping the Cultural Landscape of the Post-World War II American Pesticide Controversies,” Environmental History 7, no.1 (January 2002): 104-107.

[37] Flippen, “Pests,” 445.

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Bibliography:

• Bishopp, F. C., and Cornelius B. Philip. "Carriers of Human Diseases." In Insects: The Yearbook of Agriculture, 1952, edited by Alfred Stefferud, 147-160. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952.

• Brooks, Karl Boyd. Before Earth Day: The Origins of American Environmental Law, 1945-1970. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.

• Buhs, Joshua Blu. "Dead Cows on a Georgia Field: Mapping the Cultural Landscape of the Post-World War II American Pesticide Controversies.” Environmental History 7, no. 1 (January 2002): 99-121.

• Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. London: Penguin Books, 1962.

• Conis, Elena. "Polio, DDT, and Disease Risk in the United States after World War II." Environmental History 22, no. 4 (October 2017): 696-721.

• Daniel, Pete. "A Rouge Bureaucracy: The USDA Fire Ant Campaign of the Late   1950s." Agricultural History 64, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 99-114.

• Flippen, J. Brooks. "Pests, Pollution, and Politics: The Nixon Administration’s Pesticide Policy." Agricultural History 71, no. 4 (autumn 1997): 445.

• Hays, Samuel P. Beauty, Health and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

• Janzen, Mark Ryan. "The Cranberry Scare of 1959: The Beginning of the End of the Delany Clause." PhD diss., Texas A&M University, 2010.

• Larrimer, W. H. "Pest Control and Wildlife Relationships." Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 52, no. 7 (1962): 163–67.

• Lyle, Clay. “Can insects be eradicated?” In Insects: The Yearbook of Agriculture,1952, edited by Alfred Stefferud,197-199. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952.

• "Medicine: Polio Panic." Time, August 1946. Accessed October 29, 2024.            https://time.com/archive/6773458/medicine-polio-panic/.

• Muchley, Robert. "The Fly Is as Deadly as a Bomber!!" Philadelphia, Pa.: War Services Project, between 1941 and 1943.Accessed October 29, 2024. https://www.loc.gov/item/98517381/. 

• Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company. "So... You Wouldn’t Hurt a Fly!" Life, May 31, 1948, 102. Accessed October 29, 2024. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WkYEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

• Russel, Edmund. War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

• "Science: Careful with DDT." Time, October 22, 1945. Accessed October 29, 2024. https://time.com/archive/6774896/science-careful-with-ddt/.

• "Science: DDT." Time, June 12, 1944. Accessed October 29, 2024. https://time.com/archive/6897903/science-ddt/.

• "Science: DDT Dangers." Time, April 16, 1945. Accessed October 29, 2024. https://time.com/archive/6772023/science-ddt-dangers/.

• "Science: This Summer – DDT." Time, June 24, 1946. Accessed October 29, 2024. https://time.com/archive/6790369/science-this-summer-ddt/.

• Smith, M.I., and E.F. Stohlman. "Further Studies on the Pharmacologic Action of 2,2 Bis (P- Chlorophenyl) 1,1,1 Trichloroethane (DDT)." Public Health Reports 1896-1970 60, no. 11 March 16, 1945): 289-301.

• "Use of DDT for Mosquito Control in the United States: A Joint Statement of Policy by the United States Army and the United States Public Health Service." Public Health Reports 1869-1970 60, no. 17 (April 27, 1945): 469-70.

Warner, William Lloyd. "Sociologist looks at an American Community." Life, September 12, 1949, 108-119. Accessed October 29, 2024. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yUkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA108&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false