by Deborah Blum
Introduction
Milk offers a stunning: Many of these outrages are cited in The Milk Trade in New York and Vicinity, by John Mullaly (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1853). The New York Times also published a series of exposés on the subject in the 1850s that reflected Mullaly’s outrage in stories such as “How We Poison Our Children” (May 13, 1858). The many problems with nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century milk are noted in numerous other publications, both contemporary, such as Thurman B. Rice, “The Milk Problem,” in The Hoosier Health Officer: The History of the Indiana State Board of Health to 1925 (Indianapolis: Indiana State Board of Health, 1946), pp. 161–68, and more recently, in food safety histories such as James Harvey Young, “Mercury, Meat and Milk,” in Pure Food (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 18–39.
Fakery and adulteration: These fakeries were studied by Harvey Wiley and his chemistry group for years. He summarized many of the findings in Harvey Washington Wiley, Foods and Their Adulteration (Philadelphia: P. Blackiston’s Sons, 1907), and in Harvey W. Wiley and Anne Lewis Pierce, 1001 Tests of Foods, Beverages and Toilet Accessories, Good and Otherwise (New York: Hearst’s International Library Company, 1914).
“Ingenuity, striking hands”: La Follette’s speech can be found in Congressional Record, 49th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 17, appendix, pp. 223–26, and is noted in Young’s book Pure Food, which also focuses on the pure-food crusade that gained power in the late nineteenth century, notably in chapter 6, titled “Initiative for a Law Resumed,” pp. 125–46.
This especially galled: The comparison of unregulated U.S. alcoholic beverages with those in Europe can be found in Charles Albert Crampton, U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Fermented Alcohol Beverages, Malt Liquors, Wine and Cider,” part 3 of U.S. Department of Agriculture, bulletin 13, Foods and Food Adulterants (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887). Between 1887 and 1893, the Bulletin 13 series, established by Wiley, investigated dairy products, spices and condiments, alcoholic beverages, lard, baking powders, sweetening agents, tea, coffee and cocoa, and canned vegetables. These are summarized in Oscar E. Anderson Jr., The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 73–74.
“this great country”: This is a quote from Frank Hume, chair of the Local Call Committee of the National Pure Food and Drug Congress of 1898. The quote is highlighted in Pure Food, p. 125, and the full presentation can be found in the Journal of Proceedings of the National Pure Food and Drug Congress Held in Columbia University Hall (Washington, DC, March 2, 3, 4–5, 1898). Further description can be found in Suzanne Rebecca White, “Chemistry and Controversy: Regulating the Use of Chemicals in Foods, 1883–1959” (PhD diss., Emory University, 1994).
great food safety chemist: Anderson, Health of a Nation, p. 148.
Chapter One: A Chemical Wilderness
“I am not possessed”: This quote can be found on page 20 of Harvey Washington Wiley, An Autobiography (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1930), which served as one of the primary sources for this section. For the biographical material in this chapter, I also drew upon the letters and diaries archived at the Library of Congress and voluminous biographical material, including that found in Oscar E. Anderson Jr., The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958); James Harvey Young, Pure Food (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989); and Laurine Swainston Goodwin, The Pure Food, Drink and Drug Crusaders, 1879–1914 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999), among many other sources.
“can not climb to Heaven”: Anderson, Health of a Nation, pp. 10–11.
In 1820 a pioneering book: Accum’s A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons is cited by many food safety historians as one of the most influential nineteenth-century publications. It can be found (along with its wonderful cover featuring a skull peering out of a cooking pot) as a public-domain publication on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/treatiseonadulte00accurich#page/n5/mode/2up. The British physician Arthur Hill Hassall built on Accum’s work, publishing many accounts of toxic foods, such as candies, in the Lancet and summarizing those reports in Food and Its Adulterations (London: Longman, Brown, Greene and Longmans, 1855).
“millions of children are thus”: This quote is from another book on arsenic: John Parascandola, King of Poisons: A History of Arsenic (Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2012), p. 128. A remarkable overview can also be found in environmental historian James C. Whorton’s book The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain Was Poisoned at Home, Work and Play (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), in a chapter titled “Sugared Death,” pp. 139–68.
“They poison and cheat”: Angell’s push to protect the food supply is described in Young, Pure Food, pp. 45–48.
“Not only are substances”: Young, Pure Food, p. 51.
In 1881 the Indiana: Wiley’s investigation of fraud in sweetening agents was titled “Glucose and Grape Sugar” and was published in Popular Science Monthly 19 (June 1881). The article can be found online at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_19/June_1881/Glucose_and_Grape-Sugar. His comment about entering the fray over “Wiley’s Lie” can be found on p. 151 of Wiley, An Autobiography.
“The dangers of adulteration”: Anderson, Health of a Nation, p. 22.
“These were the first”: Wiley, An Autobiography, p. 165.
In 1883, the Agriculture: Wiley’s decision to leave Purdue, his battle with Peter Collier, including the quotes about “public attacks,” his impressions of the Division of Chemistry, the political background of his start in federal service, and his decision to ban smoking can be found in Wiley, An Autobiography, pp. 159–75. Wiley was early in his belief that tobacco smoking was harmful to health; in 1927 he even warned that it might contribute to cancer, a fact noted in his official FDA biography: www.fda.gov/aboutfda/whatwedo/history/centennialoffda/harveyw.wiley/default.htm.
“I have every year”: John Mullaly, The Milk Trade in New York and Vicinity (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1853). Further investigation of “swill dairies,” which used cheap waste products from breweries as the food source for milk cattle, can be found in “Swill Milk: History of the Agitation of the Subject: The Recent Report of the Committee of the New York Academy of Medicine,” New York Times, January 27, 1860, p. 1. The issue is also explored in Bee Wilson, Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). Wilson offers in particular a vivid description of swill dairies (pp. 159–62).
“so numerous a proportion”: Albert Leeds, “The Composition of Swill Milk,” Journal of the American Chemical Society 42 (1890): pp. 451–52.
“sticks, hairs, insects”: Thurman B. Rice, The Hoosier Health Officer (Indianapolis: Indiana Department of Health, 1946), pp. 162–63.
It revealed, as expected: “Dairy Products,” part 1 of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foods and Food Adulterants, bulletin no. 13 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887).
The ability of producers: The history of oleomargarine is detailed in Ethan Trex, “The Surprisingly Interesting History of Margarine,” Mental Floss, August 1, 2010; and Rebecca Rupp, “Butter Wars: The Margarine Was Pink,” The Plate, August 13, 2014, http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/13/the-butter-wars-when-margarine-was-pink/; among others. The battle over the first margarine law is described in those articles, in Young, Pure Food, pp. 71–94, and in detail in Geoffrey P. Miller, “Public Choice at the Dawn of the Special Interest State: The Story of Butter and Margarine,” California Law Review 77, no. 1 (January 1989): 81–131.
“We face a new situation”: Young, Pure Food, p. 66. The other comments from legislators—such as Grout on “bastard butter,” are from the same source at pp. 71–80. The congressional debate over oleomargarine, including many of the same quotes, can also be found in chapter
10 of Douglass Campbell M.D., The Raw Truth About Milk (Rogers, AR: Douglass Family Publishing, 2007).
“It is undoubtedly true”: “Dairy Products,” p. 10.
“nearly the same chemical”: “Dairy Products,” p. 73.
“the use of mineral coloring”: “Dairy Products,” p. 107.
That same year: Jesse P. Battershall, Food Adulteration and Its Detection (New York and London: E. & F. N. Spon, 1887) can be found online at https://books.google.com/books?id=i-AMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP11&lpg=PP11&dq=battershall,+food+and+detection&source=bl&ots=EB3hZWz-BN&sig=9qeRqV_92ipt89D1dY27qthifHM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm27um3q7WAhUHySYKHeFxAtEQ6AEINDAC#v=onepage&q=battershall%2C%20food%20and%20detection&f=false.
“Could only a portion”: Clifford Richardson, “Spices and Condiments,” part 2 of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foods and Food Adulterants, Bulletin 13 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887).
Chapter Two: Cheated, Fooled, and Bamboozled
Yet Battershall’s 1887 book: Jesse P. Battershall, Food Adulteration and Its Detection (New York and London: E. & F. N. Spon, 1887).
Richardson, writing in the bulletin: Clifford Richardson, “Spices and Condiments,” part 2 of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 13, Foods and Food Adulterants (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887).
The third and final: C. A. Crampton, “Fermented Alcoholic Beverages, Malt Liquors, Wine, and Cider,” part 3 of U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 13, Foods and Food Adulterants (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887).
Found in plants: The backstory of salicylic acid is widely published, in places ranging from Daniel R. Goldberg, “Aspirin: Turn-of-the-Century Miracle Drug,” Distillations, summer 2009, www.chemheritage.org/distillations/magazine/aspirin-turn-of-the-century-miracle-drug, to T. Hebner and B. Everts, “The Early History of Salicylates in Rheumatology and Pain,” Clinical Rheumatology 17, no. 1 (1998): 17–25.
“In this country but little”: Crampton, “Fermented Alcoholic Beverages,” p. 35.
“This report closes”: Crampton, “Fermented Alcoholic Beverages,” pp. 142–44.
“a healthy stomach can”: Harvey Wiley, “Introduction,” in Crampton, “Fermented Alcoholic Beverages,” p. 4.
Like Wiley, Rusk had: Wiley describes Rusk’s tenure in Harvey Washington Wiley, An Autobiography (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1930), pp. 181–83, as “the golden epoch in my service in the Department of Agriculture.”
The lard study again: H. W. Wiley, “Lard and Lard Adulterations,” part 4 of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 13, Food and Food Adulterants (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1891).
Increasingly frustrated that: Harvey Young, Pure Food (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 106.
“utter recklessness and hard-heartedness”: Alexander Wedderburn, U.S. Department of Agriculture, “A Popular Treatise on the Extent and Character of Food and Drug Adulteration” (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1890).
The division’s 1892 investigation: Guilford L. Spencer and Ervin Edgar Ewell, “Tea, Coffee and Cocoa Preparations,” part 7 of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 13, Food and Food Adulterants (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1892).
“This substance, as its name”: Spencer and Ewell, “Tea, Coffee and Cocoa Preparations,” p. 886.
“there is probably”: Spencer and Ewell, “Tea, Coffee and Cocoa Preparations,” pp. 933–45.
“Dear Sir,” began one: Spencer and Ewell, “Tea, Coffee and Cocoa Preparations,” p. 915.
Lawmakers had taken: Oscar E. Anderson Jr., The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 77–79; Young, Pure Food, pp. 95–100; Suzanne Rebecca White, “Chemistry and Controversy: Regulating the Use of Chemicals in Foods, 1883–1959” (PhD diss., Emory University, 1994), pp. 1–15.
“The devil has got hold”: Young, Pure Food, p. 95.
“as nearly nonpartisan”: Young, Pure Food, p. 99.
“To be cheated, fooled”: Harvey W. Wiley, “The Adulteration of Food,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 137 (1894): p. 266.
“Angry waves of popular”: Young, Pure Food, p. 99.
The new secretary was: Background on Morton can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Sterling_Morton, which includes links to his biography and his stature as a founder of Arbor Day. His contentious time at the Agriculture Department is detailed in Wiley’s autobiography, in Health of a Nation at pp. 86–94, and in the internal correspondence of the Agriculture Department archived at the Library of Congress.
“well on the way”: Anderson, Health of a Nation, p. 87.
“Is there any necessity”: Morton’s increasingly exasperated exchanges with Wiley, regarding both Wedderburn and the budget of the Chemistry Division, can be found in the Harvey Washington Wiley Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, box 29, folders 1892–93. The work of Wedderburn is further described in Steven L. Piott, American Reformers 1870–1920: Progressives in Word and Deed (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), pp. 168–70, and in Courtney I. P. Thomas, In Food We Trust: The Politics of Purity in American Food Regulation (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014).
The secretary also ordered: Anderson, Health of a Nation, pp. 86–94; Wiley, An Autobiography, pp. 183–84. Further budget-cutting measures and exchanges over test tubes, typewriter ribbons, and other reductions, as well as notes from members of Congress regarding the Agriculture budget, can be found in the Wiley Papers, box 29, folder 1894.
“The sentiment and truths”: Alexander Wedderburn, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Report on the Extent and Character of Food and Drug Adulteration (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894).
“President of all”: Wiley, An Autobiography, p. 186.
Wiley wasn’t happy: Wiley Papers, box 29. The chemistry exhibits at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, including Wiley’s speech, are described in “The American Chemical Society at the World’s Fair 1893 and 1933,” Chemical & Engineering News 11, no. 12 (June 20, 1933): pp. 185–86.
In the last week: Helen Louise Johnson to Harvey Wiley, October 31, 1893, Wiley Papers, box 29.
“I was the manager of”: W. L. Parkinson to C. F. Drake, July 28, 1895, Wiley Papers, box 33.
Chapter Three: The Beef Court
“I was plunged at once”: Harvey Washington Wiley, An Autobiography (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1930), p. 180.
the nickname “Tama Jim”: Wiley described his early days with James Wilson in less than glowing terms. “He had the greatest capacity of any person I ever knew to take the wrong side of public questions, especially those relating to health through diet.” Wiley, An Autobiography, pp. 190–91. But there are a host of more objective Wilson biographies online, including this one from Iowa State University: www.public.iastate.edu/~isu150/history/wilson.html.
Perhaps it was under: Wiley, An Autobiography, pp. 194–97.
The term dated to: The battles over how to define “real” whiskey and how to define “good” whiskey began in the late 1890s and continued throughout the rest of Wiley’s time in office. For an outstanding overview of magazine length, I recommend H. Parker Willis, “What Whiskey Is,” McClure’s, April 1910, pp. 687–99. At book length, the issues are covered in depth in Gerald Carson, The Social History of Bourbon (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, repr. ed. 2010), including the political maneuverings of Kentucky’s Edmund Taylor. Regarding the Bottled-in-Bond Act, the Web site Bourbon & Banter offers “A Brief History”: www.bourbonbanter.com/banter/bottled-in-bond-a-brief-history/#.WcEGbJOGM0Q.
“carelessly made whiskeys”: Reid Mitenbuler, Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America’s Whiskey (New York: Penguin Books, 2016), p. 163.
Although they could not: The blended whiskey makers, including the Hiram Walker Compa
ny, saw Wiley as hostile to their interests. Walker’s efforts to protect its brand, as well as its political stance and actions over defining whiskey, are outlined in Clayton Coppin and Jack High, The Politics of Purity: Harvey Washington Wiley and the Origins of Federal Food Policy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999). They get an even more detailed focus in Clayton Coppin and Jack High, “Wiley and the Whiskey Industry: Strategic Behavior in the Passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act,” Business History Review 62, no. 2 (Summer 1988): 286–309, and in James Files, “Hiram Walker and Sons and the Pure Food and Drug Act” (master’s thesis, University of Windsor, 1986). The subtitle of Files’s thesis, “A Regulatory Decision Gone Awry,” will tell you that he is not a fan of Wiley’s position, and Coppin and High are similarly hostile to Wiley’s regulatory approach.
To the president’s dismay: Many of the issues regarding army mismanagement are summarized in Burtin W. Folsom, “Russell Alger and the Spanish American War,” Mackinac Center for Public Policy, December 7, 1998, www.mackinac.org/V1998-39. Russell A. Alger was secretary of war during the conflict.
The “embalmed beef” scandal: This was news in newspapers across the country, starting in 1898, when the first stories began to appear, and continuing into 1899. As Chicago was home to the meatpacking industry, the Chicago Tribune was one of the first to report on the charges by General Miles and to repeat the term “embalmed beef.” A December 22, 1898, story, at the top of page 7, was headlined simply “Miles Tells of Embalmed Beef.” The scandal was covered by many other newspapers. Coverage in the New York Times, for instance, included “The Army Meat Scandal,” February 21, 1899, p. 1; “Chemists to Inspect Beef,” March 10, 1899, p. 1; “Roosevelt on Army Beef,” March 26, 1899, p. 2; “The Army Beef Inquiry,” April 14, 1899, p. 8; and “Army Beef Report Is Made Public,” May 8, 1899, p. 1.
The scandal is neatly summarized in Andrew Amelinckx, “Old Time Farm Crime: The Embalmed Beef Scandal of 1898,” Modern Farmer, November 8, 2013, https://modernfarmer.com/2013/11/old-time-farm-crime-embalmed-beef-scandal-1898/, and gets a more academic treatment in Edward F. Keuchel, “Chemicals and Meat: The Embalmed Beef Scandal of the Spanish American War,” Bulletin of Medical History 48, no. 2 (Summer 1974): pp. 249–64.