WaronBugs: Pesticides, Household Poisons, and Dr. Seuss

8/2/2019 WaronBugs: Pesticides, Household Poisons, and Dr. Seuss

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Will Allen


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Famous Dr. Seuss cartoon for Flit bug spray. From Richard

Marshall, The Tough Coughs as He Plows the Dough (New York:

William Morrow, 1987).


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107

The earliest pesticide applicator was a folded piece of

paper or cardboard from which a person literally blew

the poison onto the plants. This, however, was not a

sufficient or efficient system, since an accidental cough

or an inhalation could prove deadly.

The need to spread dust over a wider area led to the

use of simple flour sifters, or, as we saw with arsenic,

makeshift box dusters with milk screens nailed on the

bottom. The lovable fireplace bellows was the next

household item to be jerry-rigged as a pesticide duster.

Modified and enlarged, the bellows could be ordered

with attachments for fumigation and animal-pest

control. This enabled farmers and gardeners to blow

poison dust wherever and on whatever needed it.

Pump applicators supplemented this primitive

arsenal in the 1880s, facilitating the spread of poisons

at home and in the fields. Only slightly different from

a bicycle pump, they increased efficiency and range

significantly. Pumps came with a variety of

attachments that could accommodate numerous

poisons and different applicator needs. For the next

forty years, manufacturers endlessly modified these

canister pumps, especially for household use.

Fabricators and farmers developed crank and lever

pumps sometime before the

turn of the twentieth century.

The ad makers advertised a

safe and civilized lever pump,

with graphics implying that

one could wear a hat and tiewhile dusting ones crops or

garden with arsenic.

Preparations for spraying

were elaborate by this time,

as can be seen in the photo on

the following page from the

University of CaliforniaDavis

archives. Here the horses pull

the spray rigs through the

orchard, and interestingly, some of the horses wear

more protection than the poison applicators. Similar

two-man pumps supplied gangs of workers in the late

1800s. Workers climbed ladders or sprayed poisons from

long hoses on the backs of wagons.

In addition to the stationary spray devices, there was

an enormous array of sprayerssome motorized,

some with hand pumpsthat were pulled by horsesthrough vegetable rows, melon patches, cotton fields,

vineyards, and orchards.

Chapter 14

PESTICIDE SPRAY DEVICES,HOUSEHOLD POISONS, AND DR. SEUSS

Immediately after chemical firms began to promote pesticides to American families for

house and farm use, equipment manufacturers began to produce and advertise

pesticide applicators. Unbelievable contraptions appeared by the mid-1870s, invented

or adapted to spread pesticide dusts and sprays. The marketing of chemicals became

inextricably linked with the development of effective spray devices to apply the poison onthe plant, on the pest, or under the sink.

This folded-paper device was

fortunately short-lived. From the

University of California Davis

Shields Library Special Collections.


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Most types of pumps that we have today were

available to American farmers, nurserymen, and

gardeners by the early 1900s. By the 1910s

compressed-air and gas sprayers became more

widely used. But pesticide sprayers were not used

only by farmers; householders also used spray rigsand chemical poisons. As the U.S. population

urbanized, domestic households became an

increasingly important market for the chemical

merchants.

Frank Presbrey in The History and Development of

Advertising and Roland Marchand inAdvertising the

American Dream, along with several other authors,

point out how advertisers linked chemical cleanlinesswith being American in the 1920s.1 American interest

in technology was stimulated by the press, and by

advertisers who applauded, defended, and marketed

each new scientific breakthrough in pest control.

Each concoction was heralded as the product that

could eradicate all household pests.

Many American cities, however, continued to have

only patchwork programs of sanitation and unclean

water-supply systems. Without well-designed systems

to deliver freshwater and carry away wastes, disease

continued to be a constant reality of American cities.

Filth, rats, and fear of the plague still drove buyers to

get rat poisons or call the exterminator, since most

people felt that rats carried almost any disease that

would come along for the ride.

Preying on these real but often media-exaggerated

fears, pest control and chemical advertising agencies

turned out creative and dramatic campaigns that

really stimulated the market. Of course, such

campaigns were successful because there

were always too many rats, flies, mosquitoes,

and roaches. For the pest exterminators

at the turn of the century, therewas a greatly expanding market!

As cities grew and the problems

worsened, customers began

to complain about the

ineffectiveness and danger of

the products. To deal with this

consumer skepticism, advertisers

increased their propaganda to

convince families that theyneeded chemicals and spray

devices that they could use at

home.

Pesticide advertising flared out of

control after World War I. The

United States was awash in ads,

with practically every rock, barn, and flat space

covered with promotions and propaganda. Amidst this

visual assault, corporate advertisers desperately

sought gimmicks to make their products leap out at the

consumer and rise above the crowd.

As cities grew, advertisers hit on a few pivotal

strategies that dramatically and permanently

expanded the market demand of both city and country

residents.2 One of the most successful and innovative

pesticide sales campaigns was for Flit, a fly and

mosquito killer.

108

From the University of California at Davis Shields Library

Special Collections. No date, though probably 18801890.


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Ads like this one for the Aquarius were common

in the 1880s and 1890s. The attempt of the

advertisers was clearly to imply that spraying

was safe and so dignified that one could wear

ones best Sunday meeting clothes. From the

University of California at Davis Shields Library

Special Collections.

The enlarged and modified bicycle pump,

illustrated below was common from the early

1880s until the 1890s. By that time the bicyclepump had morphed into the canister spray rig

shown at right. The canister spray pumps

enabled the user to have a larger volume of

poison. From the Pacific Rural Press, January

1885 and the back cover of California

Cultivator, May 31, 1941.

Bellows contraptions such as the three

shown here served farmers from the

1870s until after the turn of the century

and proved to be a significant

improvement over folded paper. From

top to bottom they are Nicholsons

Fumigator, the Powder Duster, and the

California Beauty. From the University

of California Davis Special Collections

Shields Library.


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In the 1920s, Americas most common household spray

device was a hand pump sprayer with a pressurized

canister. Each sprayer had a half-pint, pint, or quart

reservoir with a bicycle-like pump attached to spray

the poison. By the early 1930s, this pump became

popularly known as the Flit gun. Although Flit wasthe name of Standard Oils bug spray, it also became

the generic name for this type of pump, due to the

popularity of the bug spray. The Flit campaign was so

successful that by the mid-1930s airplane crop dusters

were called flying Flit guns.

Standard Oil, which John D. Rockefeller started as a

commodities brokerage house in the 1830s, had grown

to dominate the worlds petroleum industry. In the late1920s, the company needed a distinctive advertising

campaign to make Flit rise above the sea of

advertisements for other bug killers. Standard Oil was

used to being number one in sales with its pesticide

spray, and the company wanted to remain on top.

After seeing two 1927 cartoons that featured Flit guns

as props, Standard Oil hired the cartoonist, Theodore

Seuss Geisel, to create Flit advertisements. Geiselsubsequently came to be known as Dr. Seuss. For the

next fifteen years, Seusss humorous ads, which were

really commercials in the form of cartoons, appeared

in thousands of weekly and hundreds of daily

newspapers and magazines.3

The Eureka spray cart above is simpler than but similar to

spray carts used today. This model or something very

similar was used from the 1880s until well into the 1930s.

Only the motors were changed, as gasoline became much

more common after the 1920s. From the Eureka catalog.

University of California at Davis Shields Library Special

Collections.

The Cushman Corporation

used ads to promote the use

of its gasoline engine. Near

right: Cushmans catalog for1915 advertised this large

sprayer, Great Western No. 1,

with the heart of the sprayer

being a gasoline engine.

From the University of

California at Davis Shields

Library Special Collections.

Far right: This ad for a

smaller sprayer ran in several

journals for years. It includes

a guarantee to double thecrop and make it all first

class. From Better Fruit, 1913.

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The catalog page at

right from the Smith

Sprayer Co. for 1924

illustrates the evolution

of the canister sprayer,

mostly for household

and barn use. This

page also promotes the

hand-crank sprayerSavage Dry Powder

Duster (illustrating use

from horseback) and

two compressed-air

sprayers. Such catalogs

were advertised

constantly in farm and

urban journals and

would be sent free for

the price of postage.

From the University of

California at Davis

Shields Library Special

Collections.

This excerpt of an ad in the Pacific Rural Press,

January 1893, p. 20, shows again how pumps

were towed into the orchards and used to

fumigate or spray the trees.


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The two illustrations above are Dr. Seuss cartoons in which he

used Standard Oils bug spray Flit as a prop. Because of these

cartoons, Dr. Seuss was offered a job with the oil giant. He

worked for Standard Oil from 1928 until 1943 and is generally

acknowledged to be responsible for greatly popularizing the use

of household poisons. The rest of the illustrations are examples

of Flit cartoons that Dr. Seuss created for Standard Oil. From

Richard Marschall, The Tough Coughs as He Plows the Dough

(New York: William Morrow, 1987).


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At the time of his hiring, Seuss was a well-known but

underpaid screwball cartoonist writing humorous

copy and drawing cartoons for theJudge, a national

humor magazine. With his cartoons for Standards bug

killer, Dr. Seuss turned Flit and the Flit gun into

household necessities. His success, which kept Flit inthe leadership position in the marketplace, also made

the incredibly prolific Geisel economically comfortable

and afforded him enough freedom to gestate his later

cartoon masterpieces.

The Seuss taglinesQuick Henry, the Flit!, Swat the

Fly!, Kill the Tick!became nationally known

slogans. Seuss helped America become friendly with

poisons; we could laugh at ourselves while we wentabout poisoning things. In the process, the public grew

comfortable with the myth that pesticides were

absolutely necessary.

The Flit campaign was an advertising stroke of genius,

and luck. Why luck? Because Seuss had actually

considered using FlyTox or Bif for the name of the bug

spray in his 1928 cartoons. The Rockefellers were twice

lucky: Dr. Seuss chose to help sell Flit and several

other Standard Oil products. And the public loved it!

Gradually, American householders came to depend

on their Flit guns. Whether filled with Flit, Bif, Black

Leaf 40, or arsenic, the home spray device had

become an essential tool in the publics mind. The

petroleum solvent that Seuss was selling as Flit,

however, was very dangerous and probably

carcinogenic in large doses, though mild when

compared to the World War II chemicals that would be

sprayed from Flit guns on everything from bedbugs to

flies, mosquitos, and humans after the end of the war.

Considering the reverence with which Dr. Seuss is

held today, it is difficult to envision him as a pivotal

figure in the public acceptance of poisonous

pesticides. Nevertheless, some historians feel that his

campaign was largely responsible for popularizing

dangerous pesticides to the American public.Adelynne Whitaker, the author ofA History of Pesticide

Regulation in the U.S., contends that the Dr. Seuss

cartoon campaign had the effect of increasing pesticide

use tenfold for the nations families.4

One of Seusss later books, The Lorax, with its save-

the-environment theme, is ironic when compared toimpact of the Flit cartoons. Perhaps Dr. Seuss realized

his earlier mistakes and indiscretions with Standard

Oils Flit and tried to make amends with The Lorax.

Geisel must have known that Flits cartoons and his

World War II cartoons for DDT had an enormous

impact on the publics use of pesticides and

acceptance of DDT. Seuss was proud of his success as

a pesticide salesman. For most of his life, however,

Seuss was a reformer, a progressive, and a patriotashis World War II cartoons for the government attacking

Nazi Germany and the American right wing illustrate

in later chapters.

114

From California Cultivator,

May 31, 1941.


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As Standards Flit campaign soared with

cartoons, other bug sprays like Bif stuck to the

text-intense, scientific, war-and-fear format

that Flit had used before the Dr. Seuss

cartoons dominated their ads. Before long, the

soldier and the text of Flit ads were replacedby Seusss humorous cartoons.

A full-page ad for Flit

graced the entire back cover

of Wallaces Farmer, May 10,

1929.


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The secret history of pesticides revealed:how farmers and consumers have been conned by government,

industry, and war-mongering jargon into choosing toxic food.

In 1984, when the gas leak from Union Carbides pesticide plant in Bhopal killed thousands, I asked

myself why agriculture had become like war. In The War on Bugs, Will Allen tells us why. Whetheryou care about the bugs, or the food you grow or eat, this is a book you must read. It will help us allmove from violent agriculture to a non-violent agriculture which protects all life and our health.

Dr. Vandana Shiva, Director of the Research Foundation for Science,Technology and Natural Resource Policy and author of Stolen Harvest

In classical Indian music the lineage and intellectual approach of master and disciples is known as agharana. Rachel Carsons 100th anniversary provoked an enormous attack on her from the pesticide-reactionary complex, shamelessly misrepresenting both her work and its consequences. . . . Will Allenis a worthy student of Carsons gharana, and in telling the history of earlier such assaults from the

pesticide complex, he shows us that her spirit and art are alive, welland still badly needed.Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club

The War on Bugs is must reading for organic consumers and every concerned citizen. Will Allen

tells us the incredible story of how corporations, out-of-control scientists, and indentured govern-ment have carried out a literal 100 Year War against organic and sustainable agriculture and fami-

ly farms, and provides inspiration for the organic food and farming revolution already underway.Ronnie Cummins, National Director of the Organic Consumers Association

Will Allen exposes how at every turn the government and the chemical industry steered us towardsynthetic and poisonous solutions to the challenges of farming. He draws upon a unique combina-

tion of scientific knowledge about their devastating effects on the environment and a rich under-

standing of the organic approachfrom doing it, as a farmer, in the fields.Mark Schapiro, Editorial Director of the Center

for Investigative Reporting and author of Exposed

Documents

WaronBugs: Pesticides, Household Poisons, and Dr. Seuss