Knowing Nature through Labored Breathing: A Modern History of Allergy

Abstract

While researching the history of soil erosion in the South, I was recently cruising through early issues of The Land, the quarterly published by Friends of the Land. Founded in 1940 by a group of New Deal conservationists and agricultural reformers, Friends of the Land took as its goal the promotion of permanent agriculture.' Most of the articles in The Land reflected that interest. But in the midst of the third issue, I came across an unexpected essay, titled Hay Fever, by R.G. Tugwell. Rexford Tugwell was, of course, an agricultural economist and member of Franklin Roosevelt's Brain Trust who rose through the USDA during the 1930s to become head of the Resettlement Administration. He was also a founding member of Friends of the Land. But why was he writing about hay fever, and what did hay fever have to do with agricultural reform? Tugwell began his article by defining hay fever sufferers as a misunderstood tribe who got little respect from those who did not experience their seasonal symptoms. Then he made the puzzling claim that those afflicted with hay fever constituted an elite with special sensory powers. It is well known that the allergic are better informed and more cultivated than the run of people, Tugwell insisted. It is a matter of inner cognizances, of more delicate responses to the affairs of the world. Is not allergy itself more properly described as a sensitivity? His suggestion that allergy was a mark of privilege seemed as audacious as it was curious, but his point about sensitivity raised an intriguing question. Could the allergic be more attuned to the natural world in certain ways?2 In his discussion of the causes of hay fever, Tugwell aimed most of his wrath at ragweed. He praised the New Deal relief projects, which he oversaw, that aimed to control the weedy scourge in urban areas, and he celebrated the growing knowledge of ragweed geography, a mapping project critical to those seeking seasonal escape. He fastened in particular on the American West, a