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The Nature of Tomorrow: Inbreeding in Industrial Agriculture and Evolutionary Thought in Britain and the United States, 1859-1925

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The Nature of Tomorrow: Inbreeding in Industrial Agriculture and Evolutionary Thought in Britain and the United States, 1859-1925 The Nature of Tomorrow: Inbreeding in Industrial Agriculture and Evolutionary Thought in Britain and the United States, 1859-1925 By Theodore James Varno A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor John E. Lesch, Chair Professor Cathryn L. Carson Professor Stephen E. Glickman Fall 2011 The Nature of Tomorrow: Inbreeding in Industrial Agriculture and Evolutionary Thought in Britain and the United States, 1859-1925 © 2011 By Theodore James Varno 1 Abstract The Nature of Tomorrow: Inbreeding in Industrial Agriculture and Evolutionary Thought in Britain and the United States, 1859-1925 By Theodore James Varno Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor John E. Lesch, Chair Historians of science have long recognized that agricultural institutions helped shape the first generation of geneticists, but the importance of academic biology to scientific agriculture has remained largely unexplored. This dissertation charts the relationship between evolutionary thought and industrial agriculture from Charles Darwin’s research program of the nineteenth century through the development of professional genetics in the first quarter of the twentieth century. It does this by focusing on a single topic that was important simultaneously to evolutionary thinkers as a conceptual challenge and to agriculturalists as a technique for modifying organism populations: the intensive inbreeding of livestock and crops. Chapter One traces zoological inbreeding and botanical self-fertilization in Darwin’s research from his articles published in The gardeners’ chronicle in the 1840s and 1850s through his The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom of 1876. In doing so, it demonstrates how Darwin metaphorically linked natural selection to methodical selection in order to authorize the naturalist to become an experimental evolutionist. It also explores the potential of Darwin’s program as an ideology for actors intent on transforming the political economy of agriculture. Chapter Two moves away from scholarly discussions of evolution to consider how intensive inbreeding was pioneered as a method for modifying crops by the Bureau of Plant Industry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture between 1897 and 1907, the decade following William Jennings Bryan’s loss to William McKinley in the election of 1896. By analyzing both Robert Bakewell’s livestock inbreeding system of the eighteenth century and Archibald Shamel’s Connecticut River tobacco self-fertilization program of the early twentieth, the chapter explains the political economy of intensive inbreeding. It concludes by exploring the broader context of the experiments devoted to livestock inbreeding that George Rommel initiated at the Bureau of Animal Industry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the early 1900s. 2 Chapter Three combines the intellectual history of Chapter One with the political and economic history of Chapter Two by illustrating how the research program of experimental evolution that Darwin formulated in the nineteenth century mapped onto the large-scale industrial agriculture projects of the USDA between 1903 and 1925. The chapter follows ideas on inbreeding as they moved across various academic and professional communities, paying particular attention to institutional arrangements like the American Breeders’ Association and the Bussey Institution of Harvard University that facilitated these transfers. It also examines various inbred organism populations that became prototypes for industrial production and the scientists who became their shepherds: the Wistar rats of Helen Dean King, the hybrid corn of Edward Murray East and Donald Forsha Jones, and the guinea pigs of Sewall Wright. i For Mom & Dad ii Contents Acknowledgments / iii Introduction / 1 1. “An experiment on a gigantic scale”: Charles Darwin on domesticated nature, inbreeding, and the inevitable unfolding of human history, 1859- 1876 / 18 2. “500 plants so nearly alike that you could not tell them apart”: Self- fertilization and intensive inbreeding at the U.S. Bureaus of Plant and Animal Industry, 1897-1907 / 56 3. “The theory of the two studies must inevitably go together”: Inbreeding, industrial agriculture, and the study of evolution in the United States, 1903-1925 / 86 Conclusion / 124 List of Abbreviations / 130 Bibliography / 132 iii Acknowledgments This dissertation is the product of two scholarly communities separated by nearly 3,000 miles. While it was being prepared, I drove between them on ten different occasions, taking as many looping, inefficient cross-country routes as I could discover. I accumulated far more debts on those journeys, both intellectual and personal, than I could possibly enumerate here; I have been a very lucky person. This project began in Berkeley, and its basic contours took shape in numerous seminars and in free-flowing conversations with my professors and fellow graduate students at the University of California. I owe particular thanks to Professors Tom Laqueur, Kerwin Klein, the late Roger Hahn, and the late Reggie Zelnick for thoughtful early discussions of many of the historical topics this dissertation addresses. Professor Robin Einhorn has been a great influence on my understanding of the history of the United States. Mabel Lee of the Department of History and Diana Wear of the Office for History of Science and Technology patiently guided me through countless moments of confusion. Elihu Gerson and Jim Griesemer provided helpful feedback through the Philosophical Pizza Munch of the California Academy of Sciences. Whether I needed reading recommendations or a stiff drink, I could always count on Dylan Esson, who kept me on track about as often as he steered me off; I cannot imagine what graduate school would have been like without him. Corrie Decker and Michelle King motivated me to write portions of the dissertation for the first time for our San Francisco support group, and to both of them I am very grateful. Thanks also to Kevin Adams, Michelle Branch, Tom Burnett, Candace Chen, Hernán Cortés, Nicole Eaton, Kathryn Eigen, Susan Groppi, Jo Guldi, Amy Lippert, Daniel Lucks, Andrew Mamo, Filippo Marsili, Tiffany Jo Merrill, Alan Mikhail, Robin Mitchell, Martina Nguyen, Kalil Oldham, Emily Redman, Sam Redman, Matt Sargent, Brandon Schechter, Joni Spigler, Chris Shaw, James Skee, Bill Wagner, Stephanie Young, and the rest of my classmates who made Berkeley a special place to live as well as to think. In 2008, I received a generous Dissertation Writing Fellowship from the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science (PACHS) that allowed me to relocate to the East Coast and become a part of another community of historians. At PACHS, I could always count on Babak Ashrafi to be a calm, supportive presence in my day; his genuine interest in all facets of the history of science and the thoughtful consideration he gives to the historians he meets continue to impress me. In addition, Bonnie Clause helped to introduce me to the city of Philadelphia and passed on her great knowledge of the Wistar rat. Without the assistance, advice, and recommendations of the staff of the American Philosophical Society Library, especially Roy Goodman, Charles Greifenstein, Valerie-Ann Lutz, and Earle Spamer, this dissertation could not have possibly included the wide range of scientists as subjects that it does; preliminary research for my dissertation was also made possible by a Library Resident Research Fellowship. In Philadelphia, I was welcomed into a vibrant intellectual scene, and many professors and graduate students on the East Coast helped me refine and develop my project. I owe special thanks to Barbara Kimmelman, who has been iv a source of both intellectual inspiration and friendly encouragement; this dissertation is, in many ways, the continuation of a way of thinking that she initiated in her own dissertation. I shared several engaging, thought-provoking conversations with Will Provine, who was kind enough to allow me to spend a winter day rummaging through the boxes of Sewall Wright’s guinea pig cards and reprints of scientific papers in his barn in Marathon, New York. Susan Lindee and Betty Smocovitis helpfully critiqued an early version of my first chapter at a meeting of the Joint Atlantic Seminar for the History of Biology, as did Sharon Kingsland, who put me more firmly on the trail of Edward Murray East. My project benefitted immensely from some careful observations by the late Phil Pauly, who was inclined to see the broader economic context of scientific research. Thanks are due as well to Nick Blanchard, Henry Cowles, Taika Dahlbom, Brendan Matz, Miranda Paton, Emily Pawley, Sage Ross, Eric Stoykovich, Roger Turner, Damon Yarnell, and so many other fellow graduate students in the history of science. From beginning to end, I have only been able to continue on with this dissertation because of the amazing companions who have surrounded me. Professor Sy Mauskopf at Duke University first introduced me to the history of science, and he has remained an influence throughout this project; I always look forward to our meetings in North Carolina. Andrew Clark let me stay at his apartment in Washington, D.C., for weeks at a time, and even drove Route 66 in its entirety with me to get me back to California; I am very grateful that he has remained my friend for so many years. Elisha Cohn, Cam Finch, Julie Gilgoff, Malay Majmundar, Lisa & Peter & Jude Marietta, Amy Shah, Azeem Shaikh, Andrew Sparling, and Mary Kate Stimmler have been the supportive friends who made my years of research and writing richer and happier. My brothers, Matt and Michael, have stuck with me throughout this process and visited me nearly everywhere I’ve lived. Philadelphia would not have become a home without Laura Deutch, Talissa Ford, Nazim Karaca, Katya Roelse, Agnes & Matty, and the strange circle that gathered daily at the Gleaner’s Café at 917 South Ninth Street. From our first meeting at ISHPSSB in 2007, Lisa Onaga has been a sympathetic friend and an important intellectual influence.
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