Outstanding in His Field: Perspectives on American Agriculture in Honor of Wayne D. Rasmussen ed. by Frederick V. Carstensen, et al

Abstract

technology and culture Book Reviews 1041 the rich results this interdisciplinary effort can yield, and they raise many questions to guide future study. Fredric L. Quivik Mr. Quivik is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of History and Sociology of Science; his dissertation is an environmental history of copper-smelting technologies in Montana, 1880-1920. Outstanding in His Field: Perspectives on American Agriculture in Honor of Wayne D. Rasmussen. Edited by Frederick V. Carstensen, Morton Rothstein, and Joseph A. Swanson. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1993. Pp. xviii+158; notes, index. $34.95. This volume results from a Festschrift in honor of Wayne Rasmus­ sen on the occasion of his 1986 retirement from the position of Histo­ rian of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). For most historians, Rasmussen was the USDA, so long had he served in that office. Louis Ferleger’s brief biographical sketch points out that Rasmussen joined the USDA in 1937, and in 1940 he became the chief historian. Since then virtually all historians of American agricul­ ture have had occasion to tap Rasmussen’s deep knowledge, not only of American agricultural history, but of federal record-keeping pat­ terns as well. Rasmussen was also a prolific author and is particularly well known for his four-volume Agriculture in the United States: A Docu­ mentary History and his The Department of Agriculture, written with Gladys Baker. Ferleger’s bibliography of Rasmussen’s writings over the last forty-seven years is further testament to Rasmussen’s tremen­ dous energy and intelligence. The volume’s first section, on historiography, includes essays by James Shideler, Gavin Wright, and Hal Barron, as well as comments by Robert Gallman, Allan Bogue, and Margaret Bogue. Here the major themes of agricultural history are described and considered, and one cannot help but be struck by the continuing tension between economists and economic historians on the one hand and (the more) social and political historians on the other. This tension is developed in the second section, “Historical Studies,” in which essays by Jeremy Atack and Fred Bateman and Harold Woodman seem to suggest that one can understand agricultural history best by applying economic models or approaches to it, a strategy that more often than not depicts agricultural practice and policy as “efficient” and “progressive.” Arti­ cles by Pete Daniel and Robert McMath, in contrast, present a less sanguine view of the past, emphasizing not the wonderful advances American agriculture has made, but the troubling missteps and costly hubris brought on by the shift to scientific agriculture and mechaniza­ tion. McMath in particular is interested in a range of technological questions, from the patent disputes of manufacturers to the differing 1042 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE rates at which farmers adopted different sorts of machinery to the nearly unexamined role of technological experts in agriculture. One of the real strengths of this volume is that all of the authors offer interesting and meaty ideas for future research. While some traditional lines of inquiry seem to be about played out—for example, the facts of productive growth and rural population decline in the 20th century, the legislative battles, the shift from commonsense to science-based practice—other lines of scholarship are virtually un­ touched, at least by agricultural historians. In some cases drawing from work in other branches of history and the social sciences, most of the authors identify fresh questions that will advance the funda­ mental concerns of the held. Surely this is a fine tribute to Rasmussen, himself both a model for and a mentor to several generations of agricultural historians. Deborah Fitzgerald Dr. Fitzgerald is an associate professor in the history of technology at Massachu­ setts Institute of Technology. She is the author of The Business ofBreeding: Hybrid, Com in Illinois and is currently working on a history of industrial agriculture. The Lawn: A History ofan American Obsession. By Virginia ScottJenkins. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. Pp. x + 246; illustrations, notes, index. $14.95 (paper). Front Yard America: The Evolution and Meanings ofa Vernacular Domestic Landscape. By Fred E. H. Schroeder. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1993. Pp. x+171; illustrations, notes...